First Minister unveils £5m loan scheme for businesses

Published on Friday 19 March 2010 21:51

A £5 MILLION loan scheme for businesses was announced by First Minister Alex Salmond yesterday. He unveiled plans for the East of Scotland Investment Fund during an address to the annual conference of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) in Aberdeen.

The fund will offer loans of up to 50,000 to firms, and the government says it could create 1,300 jobs.

Mr Salmond said: "This new initiative will help ambitious companies and entrepreneurs get the finance needed to realise their potential and, in turn, contribute to Scotland's economic recovery and success.

"This new fund will build on the package of measures this government has successfully introduced to support our business community during these challenging economic times."

Similar schemes already exist in the west, south and Highland areas of Scotland, through the West of Scotland Loan Fund and The Opportunity Fund.

The initiative will be supported by 2m in European Regional Development Funding (ERDF) and 3m of funding from the 12 local authorities taking part. The councils involved are Fife, Aberdeen, Angus, Edinburgh, Clackmannanshire, Dundee, Falkirk, Midlothian, Moray, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Lothian.

About 430 firms could benefit from the scheme and the government says it has the potential to generate increased turnover of 34.56m in small and medium-sized enterprises.