PROVIDENCE – House Speaker William J. Murphy indicated Wednesday that legislative leaders are considering ways they could provide support for small businesses and improve the state’s economic climate, although he declined to provide specifics.

Murphy, D-West Warwick, made the comments at a breakfast meeting of the Rhode Island chapter of the Smaller Business Association of New England (SBANE), one day after the House convened a special all-day summit on the state’s economy.

The speaker told the gathering he was proud that the House had not raised broad-based taxes in four years, and he suggested that instead of providing tax incentives or credits, “the way to go” might be “if we lowered everything.”

“Maybe it is the time to do something bold, so Rhode Island is more appealing to more companies,” Murphy said.

Murphy declined to provide details after the meeting, but he told Providence Business News that presentations at Tuesday’s summit led him to consider “targeting industries, seeing what can be done through incentives to get more of them to Rhode Island.” He also mentioned studying what Massachusetts has done in the field of biotechnology.

The speaker also said he will meet later this month with Mark S. Hayward, director of the Rhode Island regional office of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), “to talk about funding programs for small businesses” and look for ways to “loosen up lending problems.”

Murphy and Hayward, who also attended the SBANE meeting, declined to provide specifics afterward, although Hayward confirmed that one proposal would be to restore the tax credit for small-business-loan application fees.

The SBANE meeting was attended by about 80 people and held at the Providence Marriott Downtown. Philip M. Papoojian, vice chairman of SBANE and managing director of West Warwick-based Mereco Technologies Group Inc., told attendees that his group is working on “a 10-point plan to enhance the business climate of Rhode Island.”

The plan should be ready to be presented on Jan. 8 at an annual economic summit sponsored by the SBA’s Rhode Island office and the Small Business Development Center at Johnson & Wales University, Papoojian said.