UK exporters like to stay close to home and prefer to sell in countries with close cultural ties, even though the real opportunities could be further afield.

The message comes in a survey of more than 400 exporters by Open to Export, a not-for-profit business supporting 6,000 exporters in the UK.

The survey revealed that confidence is generally high, with 78% of owners and managers expecting overseas sales to improve in 2015 compared with this year.

But respondents also said the biggest factors in deciding where to export were finding territories “close to home” or with cultural similarities.

The most popular new markets were Europe, where six in 10 businesses sell products and the US in which 44% of firms sell product.

But the biggest growth markets in the world, the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China and the MINTs, Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey, came further down the list.

The next most popular destination for UK exports was the Middle East, followed by Australasia and the Far East, with around a third of respondents pointing to at least one of these areas.

Open to Export chairman Julian Hucker said: “Through our community and interviewing SMEs at Export Week, it’s heartening that business owners and managers are confident of their prospects for 2015 and are looking into a wide variety of markets, with Europe and North America dominating.”