SOUTHAMPTON is proving a fertile breeding ground for businesses, with ten per cent more companies setting up shop in the city this year than last year.

A boom in eating out, inspi-red by the rise of celebrity chefs like Gordon Ramsay, pictured, meant many new businesses were either restaurants or other food retailing companies, says Barclays Bank.

Overall, Southampton performed well with around 1,500 new businesses starting up during the first nine months of the year, up from 1,300 in the same period last year.

But that figure was matched by Portsmouth entrepreneurs, who founded 13 businesses per 1,000 people of working age in the city, comfortably beating Southampton's figure of 11, up from nine last year.

The figures follows research from accountants BDO Stoy Hayward suggesting fewer businesses have gone bust in 2004 than in any of the previous six years. The firm reports an eight per cent drop in the number of companies going bust from last year's figure of 17,550, with an average of 310 businesses going bust per week.

Andrew Tapsell, Barclay's deputy area manager for small business in Southampton, said: "Food-obsessed Britons are increasingly adopting a lifestyle of eating out, with dining at a restaurant no longer just for a special occasion.

"There is a thriving economy and we are seeing a lot of customers start up restaurants this year. A significant portion of start-ups are food-based and we already have a large existing base of customers in the restaurant sector and those too are going from strength to strength and some are looking at opening extra outlets as well.

"Start-ups have been assisted by the strength of the economy and further opportunities may be created as people continue to look for healthy food options.

"Southampton is a very good place to do business at the moment."

Other boom start-up sectors include hotels, communications, leisure and construction.

Nationally, there were a total of 396,000 start-ups from January to September 2004, a 14 per cent increase on the same period in 2003.