First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has urged business leaders to come up with ideas on how best to speed up sustainable economic growth.
She said creating greater prosperity and fairness was not something any government could do alone and it must be a “shared national endeavour”.
Speaking at a Scottish and Southern Energy event in Glasgow yesterday, Ms Sturgeon said: “I want to hear your ideas about how we can grow the economy faster and more sustainably and better support you to compete, innovate and export.
“I want today to open up an ongoing dialogue with you about our shared ambitions and how we achieve them.”
Ms Sturgeon said she welcomed SSE’s announcement that people who work on the Caithness-Moray subsea cable would be paid the living wage.
She told business leaders that London had a “centrifugal pull” on talent, investment and business from around the world and the challenge was how to balance that in Scotland’s best interests.
Ms Sturgeon announced she was strengthening her government’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) to help make the country more competitive.
She said Dr Harry Burns, a former chief medical officer to the government, was joining the council to help look at the issue of inequality.
Conservative enterprise spokesman Murdo Fraser claimed Ms Sturgeon had already proven to be Scotland’s “most left-wing first minister”.
“The scorecard so far is a home-buyers tax on aspiration, a proposed income tax hike, and a ridiculous land tax which she unveiled last week,” he added.
“Whatever the warm words to business, that adds up to a socialist agenda which sets a course back to the 1970s.”
Labour’s Finance spokesman Iain Gray said it was time for the government to help small firms that have not benefited from its rates relief programme.
Liz Cameron, director and chief executive of Scottish Chambers of Commerce, said agreeing to work with the business community was a positive step forward by Mr Sturgeon but the “proof of the pudding is always in the eating”.
“We need to see policies being developed and emerging which match what business needs to enable us to continue to compete, create jobs and increase our investment,” she added.