The government must increase female-owned businesses if it is to really grow the economy, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has said.

The FSB is concerned that women-owned businesses only make up 29% of self-employed people in the UK despite nearly half (46%) of the working population being female.

On International Women’s Day today, the FSB has published a new report, ‘Women in business. Female entrepreneurship: creating growth and dispelling the myths’. The FSB is calling on the government to learn from the US and other EU countries to encourage female entrepreneurship by breaking down the barriers to self-employment, promoting alternative sources of financing, encouraging mentoring, and promote female entrepreneurship role models.

Women’s enterprise contributes around £130 billion turnover and £70 billion Gross Value Added every year. But if the UK had the same level of female entrepreneurship as the US, there would be 600,000 extra women-owned businesses, contributing an additional £42 billion to the economy.

The FSB believes female entrepreneurship, is an economic resource the government has yet to fully tap into within its plans to grow the economy.

John Walker, national chairman of the FSB, said: “The number of female entrepreneurs is strikingly low