Nearly half of Scotland's small manufacturing firms have no interest in exporting their goods, according to the first survey of the sector, to be released tomorrow.
The report, Small Businesses in Manufacturing, compiled by the Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland, finds 44% of business surveyed were not exporting, and did not plan to.
The main reasons given for not pursuing a route that "can be beneficial in growing manufacturing businesses and for the wider economy" were that their products were not appropriate for export due to the perceived lack of international demand, or that they just had no ambitions in exporting. The main barriers were the cost of reaching export markets, and risk in terms of foreign currency volatility.
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