With a record low in property sales last month, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) have added to the UK's woes by reporting the worst economic survey results on record and a “frightening deterioration” in the UK's performance.

Covering the last quarter of 2008, the BCC said the survey results contained “no positive features... Domestic demand is plunging, exports are falling, and confidence is plummeting”.

The BCC has carried out its quarterly survey of more than 6,000 firms for more than twenty years.

While retail and manufacturing performance have been in the public spotlight, the bad news also concerns the services sector, said the BCC, in which home sales and orders were “particularly disturbing”. Manufacturing and services together showed negative results across enterprises of all sizes in every UK region.

”Interest rates will have to be reduced to almost zero early in 2009,” said the BCC's chief economist. Others predict that the base rate may hit half of one percent by Christmas 2009.

However, interest rate cuts are no longer adequate on their own, warned the BCC. “New and more far-reaching measures like a further fiscal stimulus and quantitative monetary easing should be introduced,” said the report.
 Quantitative easing is the modern equivalent of printing money, which some political commentators view as the last option facing a bankrupt nation.

Some of those same commentators believe the UK may have to turn to the International Monetary Fund for aid. If that happens, then Brown's days must surely be numbered.

“If the risk of deflation worsens, businesses will face new threats, and the authorities must be ready to introduce emergency policies," continued the report. Deflation might seem attractive to counterbalance last year's hike in food and energy prices, but as we've seen from the property market it can undermine consumer demand as people wait for prices to fall.

”The smooth flow of finance to businesses must be sustained at all costs, and business taxes will have to be cut,” concluded the report.

The British Retail Consortium also reported the worst high street performance since it began its own regular survey fourteen years ago.

With the government debating a loan guarantee scheme and offering golden hellos to companies taking on the long-term unemployed, it's clear that 2009 may prove to be a dark year indeed for business.

This is no ordinary recession like the one we experienced in the 1990s: the credit crunch means that even long-established, generation-spanning businesses are unable to secure lines of finance to ride out the downturn.

So let's get some feedback from sourcingfocus.com's readers and NOA members: what has your experience been, and what lessons must we learn? Sourcingfocus.com is your forum. Let's make it a thinktank for innovative ideas.