A new study suggests that businesses in and around South East England are increasingly trying to find new ways to bolster international trade.
According to up-to-date research, more than half (56 per cent) of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the region are currently exporting their products or services overseas.
Meanwhile, a further 47 per cent are either offering international customers the opportunity to pay in currencies of their choice, or investigating new ways of enabling them to do so.
The figures, which feature in a collaborative report recently published by UK Export Finance and Insider Media magazine, also reveal that businesses in South East England are more likely than those elsewhere in the UK to talk to the Department for International Trade or other organisations for advice on exports and international expansion.
However, the report also found that some 40 per cent of South East SMEs are still yet to explore their capacity to embrace export opportunities, while 27 per cent fear that ‘limited access’ to the right contacts and business networks is proving to be a barrier to their international aspirations.