BUSINESS failures in the North West have risen by almost a quarter so far this year, figures out today reveal.

More than 1,200 liquidations and bankruptcies have been recorded in the first quarter of 1999, up by 23 per cent on the same period last year.

Companies failures increased by 27.8 per cent and personal bankruptcies by 18.4 per cent. Nationally, business failures jumped by more than a fifth in the first three months of the year as the economic slowdown took its toll on industry, according to the figures published by credit information company Dun & Bradstreet.

The total of 11,093 is up from 9,185 in the same three months in 1998 - an increase of 21 per cent.

The worst-hit region was the East Midlands, where business failures increased by 62 per cent. Wales and the South West saw business failures increase by more than 40 per cent and the West Midlands by 37 per cent.

Philip Mellor, senior analyst at Dun & Bradstreet, said: "The sudden increase in failures is a reflection of the slowdown in the economy and is a cause for concern." But Mr Mellor added the failure rate was still much lower than at the height of the last recession.

In the last three months of 1992, more than 16,000 businesses failed.

Dun & Bradstreet's figures include both bankruptcies, when a company collapses unable to pay its bills, and liquidations, when a company stops trading and its assets are sold off.

The number of business failures in the first quarter of 1999 increased in every region of the UK except London, where failures fell by around 10 per cent.

And small businesses across the UK bore the brunt of the bankruptcy wave.

Failures among larger companies increased by 10 per cent while small business' bankruptcies jumped by 32 per cent.

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