Speaking to the Times, Darling said he’s standing by his Budget growth forecasts. “I remain confident that we will see a return to growth at the turn of the year,” he said.

Xenios Thrasyvoulou is the founder of Peopleperhour.com, a website that links freelancers to the businesses that need their services.

He thinks Darling’s assertion is “massively ambitious”. While Thrasyvoulou is seeing signs of recovery in the small business sector, he believes the trouble among larger companies means it’s too early to cry ‘recovery’.

“We’re seeing, for sure, signs on our site that companies at the smaller end are growing and are investing more in their business. The small companies we serve are increasing their budgets, doing more transactions and the projects they’re pushing forward with have less to do with restructuring or insolvency and more to do with marketing their business,” he says.

“But I doubt it’s enough to bring us out of recession by December. The larger companies still have issues with debt, they’re not recapitalised and the government has only just started sorting out the financial sector.”

However, Kevin King, the founder and director of website and marketing agency Createanet, believes public confidence will be starting to return by Christmas.

“In terms of the recession and spending money, there’s a lot of nervousness about, but day-to-day business will be on its way to recovery,” King says.  “We haven’t been affected by the recession. The press has been telling us that the world is coming to an end and this has made everyone nervous and apprehensive about spending money but already there is some confidence returning to the market. We’re seeing people trading and marketing their business and I think this growth will continue.” Related articlesHot 100 superstars ride out the recessionCBI: we’re over the worst of the recessionMark Dixon: we’re starting the recession in great shapePicture source

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