Businesses are unprepared for interest rate rise

Mr Lewis said exporters were among the most complacent. The survey showed 79pc of exporters did not expect their turnover to be affected by rising interest rates, compared with 61pc of other businesses.

“We’ve seen the pound rising recently,” said Mr Lewis. “That’s going to have an incredible effect on exporters and the profitability of their products.”

Smaller companies with no access to market funding, as well as hundreds of thousands of “zombie firms” that do little more than pay the interest on their loans were at the biggest risk of an interest rate shock, according to Mr Lewis, especiailly if rate rises were faster than markets currently expected, and he said sharper rises could force some out of business.

The survey of 500 firms found a third of businesses that expected rate rises to have a negative impact on turnover were in the construction industry, which the ICAEW said was most wary about consumer retrenchment when mortgage and loan costs rise.

Interest rates have been held at a record low of 0.5pc for more than five years. Britain’s recent recovery has largely been powered by consumer spending, raising concerns that without a similar recovery in business investment and export growth, the current rates of growth will be unsustainable.

Official data last week showed unemployment fell to 6.9pc in the three months to February, from 7.1pc in the three months to November, bringing forward expectations of an interest rate rise.

“News in the past few days has increased the prospects of a rise in interest rates sooner rather than later,” said Mr Lewis. “If we were conducting our survey today ... an increase in the last quarter of 2014 might be a possibility.”

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