Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond on Tuesday highlighted Scotland's success in attracting inward investment.
Opening the 2014 Commonwealth Games Business Conference at the University of Glasgow, Salmond announced that a total of 7,446 jobs were created and safeguarded in Scotland through inward investment of 423 million pounds (about 722 million U.S. dollars) in key sectors including finance and business services.
"Scotland has never had a higher profile on the international stage. That's great news for jobs and investment here in Scotland, as these figures demonstrate today," he noted.
The inward investment in Scotland is already at a 16-year high, and international visits to Scotland increased by 13 percent last year, said Salmond who expected more progress.
"One of the key issues all nations face, is how to restore and maintain the sense of social cohesion, of solidarity, of fairness, which enables entrepreneurship to flourish," he added.
Around 400 delegates from businesses and Commonwealth nations participated the opening ceremony of the two-day business conference, which aims to build trade links, international connections and learn from each other's economic successes.