DTI unveils new Ethnic Minority Business Task

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has created a new Ethnic Minority Business Task Force.

The task force is designed to foster growth among black and minority ethnic (BME) firms, improve economic participation by BME entrepreneurs and examine the reasons why BME firms face additional barriers in access to finance.

Small business minister, Margaret Hodge, said: "Over the next two years the new Task Force will propose ways to encourage more ethnic minority participation in enterprise. It will also reach out to potential entrepreneurs in under-represented BME groups, including ethnic minority women, looking to help remove the barriers to doing business which face them."

The task force will be chaired by Adeeba Malik MBE, deputy CEO of QED - UK, with Tom Riordan, chief executive of Yorkshire Regional Development Agency Yorkshire Forward, will take the role of deputy chair.

A recent DTI survey found that businesses owned by ethnic-minority entrepreneurs currently pay higher bank loan charges on average than white-owned businesses and the gap between the amount of business finance sought and the amount agreed is significantly wider for black African and Pakistani-owned firms.

An estimated 300,000 businesses in the UK are run by BMEs, contributing £20 billion each year to the British economy. However, some minority ethnic groups are under-represented, including women, black Africans, black Caribbeans and Bangladeshis.

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Date:20/06/2007 11:16:51