GE Capital’s latest SME Capex Barometer shows €410bn is forecast to be spent over the next 12 months, as confidence soars across Europe.

Based on Q1 2014 interviews with over 2,250 SME business leaders across the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, GE’s Capex Barometer finds net confidence levels have doubled over the last twelve months, from 15% in Q12013 to 33% at the end of March 2014.

Net confidence in the UK has also increased significantly, from 33% in Q1 2013 to 54% this year, the highest in Europe, followed by a stationary Germany at 45% and Poland, where net confidence has risen from 24% to 45% in the past year.

Other findings of the survey showed Germany retained the strongest overall total investment levels, expecting to spend €136bn over the next twelve months. France follows suit with €90bn, a 41% increase since 2013, followed by the UK (€71bn, up 12%), and Italy (€60bn, down 24%). Meanwhile SMEs in Poland plan to spend an estimated total €31bn, up 33%), investment plans in the Czech Republic have fallen 16% to €13bn and in Hungary the figure has risen 50% to €10bn.

GE’s survey also investigated European SMEs’ financing preferences. It found that across all seven countries, 37% of SMEs preferred using existing company capital, followed by leasing and other forms of structured finance (17%).

In the UK the difference is even greater, with one in two SMEs choosing to finance investment through their own capital, and 17% turning to leasing or structured finance followed by bank products, such as loans (13%) and overdrafts (8%).

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Ilaria del Beato, chief executive of GE Capital UK, said: "I don’t think that’s surprising, using your existing capital resources as a method of financing is the most favoured route for a company.

"I think what was more interesting in the data was the increasing awareness of alternative forms of finance to SMEs. This is something that we’ve been working on with our customers and with the SME and mid-market sector: [we aim] to increase awareness of the alternative forms of finance, as well as where you can get those options."