Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, has launched an international grant scheme to attract social enterprises from abroad to Scotland.

Salmond announced the news at The Social Enterprise Exchange conference yesterday, where he said that Scotland would become an international hub for social enterprise.

He said:

‪“The announcement today of an annual programme to support global social enterprises, to be headquartered in Scotland, is a world first and a strong message of support for the voluntary sector from Scottish Ministers.

“Scotland is already the global headquarters for the Homeless World Cup and the International Network of Street Papers. The provision of a grant to encourage other enterprises to come to Scotland is a demonstration of our strong support for the work that international social enterprises carry out, both in Scotland and around the world.”

A spokeswoman for the Scottish government told civilsociety.co.uk that the funding pot size for the grant scheme was still under consideration.