Conditions for doing business in the ACT remain challenging, according to the latest quarterly Business Beat report from Canberra Business Chamber.

“The results of our survey of business owners and managers paints a mixed picture with 58 per cent of  businesses not meeting targets and 39 per cent feeling negative or very negative levels of business confidence,” said chamber chief executive Greg Harford.

“However there may be some signs of improvement over the coming 12 months with 78 per cent expecting their business to remain stable or grow”.

“On the employment front, most (55 per cent) are expecting the employ the same number of people over the next 12 months”.

“While there is some optimism out there that conditions will improve, it’s pretty tough right now.

“In this environment it is more important that ever for the government to look at ways to reduce costs of doing businesses, and make regulations and compliance as easy to navigate as possible.”

The budget: how about heartless, thoughtless, lazy and regressive?