Now is the time to be bold, reckons Andy Bond. Yesterday the chief executive of Asda was outlining plans for £400 million of new capital spending this year. Asda not only wants to open 22 new stores, but also to diversify further into its non-core offerings of furniture and clothing.

It's reassuring to see a business leader so indifferent to the business cycle. Many of his peers are reluctant to press the button on expensive or risky new projects and hiring sprees with the economy slowing and with the outlook two or three years out quite so opaque.

For any consumer-facing business, the temptation is to delay until there is much more clarity. The latest Bank of England minutes yesterday underlined again how foggy the short to medium-term economic outlook is. Uncertainty abounds.

Mr Bond is lucky. He has the reassuring momentum of winning two million extra weekly customers in the past two years - and he has Wal-Mart as his parent company, a cash machine for whom £400 million is a rounding error.

As consumers pull in their horns, it is exports and capital spending that have to take up the slack if the economy is not to stall. Yet the more consumption shrivels, the greater the temptation to pull or shelve expansion plans. Mr Bond's phlegmatic shrugging off of the current gloom needs to be replicated by other business leaders if Britain is to achieve a soft economic landing.

patrick.hosking@thetimes.co.uk

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