NEW research shows that small British businesses are not ready to deal with the euro even though the new currency has been launched for more than a week.

The survey indicates small companies will be struggling this year to prepare for an expensive double whammy of the euro and the Millennium bug.

While banks and big businesses have already invested enormous sums to prepare for the single currency, only six per cent of small companies said they had converted any of their accounting systems.

This was despite the fact that on average they relied on continental companies for 20 per cent of their sales and a third were trading regularly in Europe.

Most of the 500 companies polled for PA by business information company Dun & Bradstreet said they had not yet been asked to deal with European suppliers in the new currency.

But euro demands are expected inevitably to increase rapidly now the currency is up and running.

In the North-west only eight per cent of respondents said their systems were ready for the euro.

Fiftyfour per cent of those asked thought it was right to wait and see what happened.

But 23 per cent thought we should join now and another 23 per cent said we should not be involved at all.

Philip Mellor, senior analyst at Dun & Bradstreet, said: "Big companies have been preparing for months for the euro.

"But for small to medium sized businesses it is only when they are asked by their trading partners that they make the conversion.

"This will put added pressure on them in terms of costs which, when combined with the Millennium bug will be very dangerous."

Small businesses are expected to be worst hit than their bigger counterparts by shouldering the costs and currency risks of converting from euros into sterling.

The survey found the most anti-euro regions were the East Midlands and the South West, which did least business with continental companies.

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