Scotland’s women entrepreneurs could boost economy by £400 million a year

This is the key finding of a new report on the value of women’s enterprise to the Scottish economy.

The research, which has the backing of RBS, is scheduled to be fully presented at the International Diana Conference in Banff Canada at the beginning of August 2010.

Blue Horizons Managing Director Jackie Waring and long standing colleague Jackie Brierton are co-authors of the report which has been developed over many months. The research found that if Scotland could achieve women led business start-ups at the same level of other parts of the UK and if only a third of the existing base of women owned Scottish businesses were encouraged to grow very modestly; the economy would be boosted by an additional £400 million per annum.

Commenting of the findings, Jackie Waring highlights;

“New business generation and growth are fundamental to Scotland’s economic recovery; particularly in the light of the severity of forthcoming public sector cuts. It makes perfect sense to target women entrepreneurs as they currently represent the largest under-represented individual sector for economic growth”.

The report makes recommendations to government, the enterprise support sector and key private sector organisations which the authors and their sponsors hope to progress in the
coming months.