Taking steps to combat barriers to ethnic minority enterprise in Scotland

While it is widely recognised that Ethnic Minority-led Businesses (EMBs) make a variety of economic and social contributions to their communities and the wider society in Scotland, there are longstanding concerns that Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurs (EMEs) do still experience relative disadvantage in a number of areas. This report highlights ten areas of such disadvantage amongst EMEs in Scotland by examining statistics from three key entrepreneurship and small business databases (the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), the Longitudinal Small Business Survey (LSBS), and the SME Finance Monitor (SMEFM)). The report also draws on actual experiences of ethnic minority entrepreneurs in Scotland gathered from interviews with 45 business-owners from various ethnic minority backgrounds, and five key informants from local government agencies, charities, community associations and other organisations that work with entrepreneurs from ethnic minority communities.