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The region’s businesses are calling for a ‘Budget for growth’ when the Chancellor delivers his report on Wednesday. Accountancy firms PwC and RSM Tenon have highlighted the need for Enterprise Zones in the region, while the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce is calling on George Osborne to encourage bank lending to small businesses.

Roger Bootle, economic adviser to Deloitte, suggests that the planned rise in fuel duty may be abandoned, but insists that “the big squeeze is still coming”.

Other predictions from West Midlands businesses include changes to property and corporation tax.

Along with predicting a possible dismissal of the rise in fuel duty, Bootle said that the government may take “another small step” towards raising the personal income tax allowance to £10,000.

He concluded: “The upshot is that the Budget will do little to alter the scale and timing of the planned public spending cuts and the coming fiscal consolidation. Equity markets may worry about the likely adverse impact of this on the economy. But the gilt market should be reassured that the government is sticking to the squeeze.”

Accountancy giant PwC said that the government’s plans to bring back Enterprise Zones could be used to “underpin manufacturing growth in the West Midlands”. The firm suggested that the zones – which could give new businesses tax breaks and see restrictions on growth removed - could accelerate the way to recovery.

Chris Romans, partner and tax expert at PwC in the Midlands, said: “The Chancellor has signalled that he intends to introduce a series of new Enterprise Zones in the March Budget as a means of stimulating growth. It is hoped that Midlands manufacturing businesses, many of which have been performing strongly despite the uncertain economic conditions, could be in line to benefit from additional tax breaks linked to their spending on buildings and machinery.”

Rob Gunn, tax director at the Birmingham office of RSM Tenon, added that he would like to see the Enterprise Zones created in the places “where businesses actually want to do business to ensure the initiative does not fail”.

Eric Williams, head of tax at Grant Thornton in Birmingham, also gave his predictions for this week’s Budget. Amongst his suggestions are reviewing the taxation of non-domiciles, ‘modest’ changes regarding corporation tax and the crackdown on avoidance of stamp duty land tax.

He said: "In this Budget the Chancellor will have to spell out how the deficit reduction plan will continue, highlight his successes and show a more innovative path to recovery.

"The main issue will be how the Chancellor will drive growth in the economy and calm market agitation that the UK’s GDP is not increasing. This is also a golden opportunity to set out a roadmap for the rest of this Parliament on tax and economic issues.

"The Chancellor will also have to give a nod to the continuing ‘fairness’ agenda so there is likely to be support for low income families and pensioners, who are particularly hard hit in the current downturn.”

The Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce echoed businesses’ calls for Osborne to make announcements that “encourage entrepreneurship and that incentivise people and businesses to upskill”.

Louise Bennett, chief executive of the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce, said: “Fuel prices are something we have spoken about at length recently and that is certainly having a bearing on businesses from a range of sectors.

“We have made sure that this is firmly understood and I would hope action is taken to address this in the Budget. But much more needs to be done. This is a chance for the Chancellor to remove some of those barriers to growth for business – particularly when it comes to employing new staff.

“More also needs to be done to get banks providing finance to help small and medium sized businesses growing again as they are very much the lifeblood of the economy.”