The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has called upon the government to do more to encourage the nation's smaller firms to expand their services to foreign markets.

Responding to the publication of the latest UK trade deficit data from the Office for National Statistics for January this year, FSB policy director Mike Cherry argued that economic difficulties within Europe and weakening demand from China mean that more now needs to be done to help businesses grow overseas.

He argued: "At £3.5 billion, the sheer size of the trade gap suggests the government is going to find it difficult to meet its target to increase the value of exports to £1 trillion and support 100,000 new exporters by 2020."

Mr Cherry concluded that one of the key issues faced by UK exporters is finding new customers and this should therefore be a strong focus for the government when examining how to address this problem in the months and years ahead.