DTI statistics show that 60 per cent of businesses in the region now have a website for marketing, yet just one in four are using the internet for on-line trading.

Adair Turner, ex-Director General of the CBI and now a director of Netscalibur, argues that businesses in the North West could help solve their IT problems by outsourcing the management of their websites and e-mail to web-hosting companies. He said: "Outsourcing the management of internet services to experts is the way to open up the tue cost benefits of the internet for the North West's small and medium-sized businesses."