BUSINESS failures in Britain fell by 6.4 per cent in the first nine months of this year, according to business information company Dun & Bradstreet.
There were 30,295 business failures from January to September compared to 33,028 during the same period last year.
The significant decline was helped by a nine per cent fall over the last three months from 11,741 failures to 10,661.
In the North West the number of failures in the first nine months was 3,601 compared to 3,644 last year, a fall of 1.2 per cent.
The number of companies going into liquidation in the region rose 0.7 per cent to 1,628 but bankruptcies fell 2.7 per cent to 1,973.
Philip Mellor, senior analyst at Dun & Bradstreet, said: "It is good to see the pace of business failures slowing down even in those parts of the country with a higher preponderance of manufacturing businesses."
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