WHILE business start-ups totalled 342,000 in 2001, down 15 per cent on the previous year, the small business picture is not as bad as it might seem.

That's the good news according to research just published by Barclays.

It discloses that in the final quarter of 2001, 79,300 new businesses started, nearly six per cent fewer than in the same quarter in 2000.

Despite these less than rosy figures, seasonally adjusted data shows the closing months of 2001 to have been encouraging with an upturn in start-up activity evident.

Business closures in the last three months of 2001 were, at 109,000, up 10 per cent on the fourth quarter of 2000.

Over the course of 2001, 410,000 businesses closed their doors for the last time, an increase of four per cent on the number of companies that ceased trading in the year 2000.

Regionally, the impact of a heavily depressed start-up market in Cumbria was probably offset, to some degree, by a less depressed and much more active market around Liverpool and Manchester.

As a result, the region reported a decline in line with the national average.

John Allen, local corporate director for Barclays said: "These figures, while not entirely positive, were to be expected given a general slowdown in the economy."