The number of businesses in Scotland is at its highest for more than a decade, official statistics have revealed.
In March there were an estimated 341,360 private sector enterprises, up 9.9% on the previous year and the largest total since 2000, the first year for which such figures are available.
Despite the economic crisis, the estimated number of business has increased every year since 2006.
Enterprise Minister Fergus Ewing said the rising number is "encouraging, especially in the current economic climate".
He said: "The rise has been driven by start-up enterprises, a sign that Scots are confident enough to go out and make the most of the opportunities available."
Only 2,250 of the businesses employ 250 or more people, 0.7% of the total number of firms.
Almost all businesses in Scotland are classed as small, with 98.3% of them employing up to 49 people, and 1.1% of businesses are medium-sized, employing between 50 and 249 people.
The success of small and medium-sized businesses is "integral to the success of our overall economy", Mr Ewing said.
"That is why the Scottish Government is committed to maintaining Scotland as the most competitive place to do business and providing the most generous package of reliefs, which includes the Small Business Bonus Scheme, available anywhere in the UK. When considered together, these reliefs are worth over £500 million a year."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article