Nicola Sturgeon will insist Scotland intends to stay at the "very heart" of Europe, with the First Minister to unveil a new plan to boost business in the wake of the Brexit vote.

The SNP leader will make clear that "Scotland is open for business" with a four-point plan aimed at increasing trade and exports.

This also includes measures to increase Scottish representation in Europe, with new trade envoys to represent the country, while an investment hub will also be set up in Berlin.

Sturgeon will say: "Let me be crystal clear about this - Scotland cannot trust the likes of Boris Johnson and Liam Fox to represent us.

"They are retreating to the fringes of Europe. We intend to stay at its very heart where Scotland belongs."

The First Minister will also use her closing speech to the SNP conference to highlight the "stark" choice facing the country, between being governed by the "hard right" Tories at Westminster or the SNP in Edinburgh

Sturgeon will condemn the "deeply damaging and utterly shameful" messages on foreign nationals from the Conservative conference in Birmingham.

She will tell the SNP conference in Glasgow: "Make no mistake - today, we face a choice of two futures. After last week in Birmingham, there can be no doubt - the choice we face has never been so stark.

"The primary contest of ideas in our country is now between the SNP and the hard-right Tories."

While the UK as a whole voted to leave the European Union in June, almost two thirds (62%) of Scots taking part in the referendum opted to remain.

The Brexit vote makes efforts to boost Scotland's economy "even more important", Ms Sturgeon will say.

The First Minister is expected to add: "Make no mistake, the growth of our economy right now is threatened not just by the prospect of losing our place in the single market - disastrous though that would be.

"It is also the deeply damaging - and utterly shameful - message that the Tories' rhetoric about foreign workers is sending and the uncertainty that message brings to our public services and Scottish employers.

"More than ever, we need to tell our European friends that Scotland is open for business."

Her four-point plan will also see the Scottish Government set up a new Board of Trade, while the envoy plan will see "prominent and successful Scots" recruited to help increase exports.

The agency Scottish Development International will also double the number of staff it has working across Europe.

While the conference comes just five months after the SNP won a third term in power at the Holyrood elections, Ms Sturgeon will say that "in many ways it feels like a political lifetime" since that victory.

"We are in a completely new era," she will say.

"A new political era and a new battle of ideas. A new era for our Parliament, with new powers and responsibilities

"And a new era for our relationship with Europe and the wider world.

"There are challenges aplenty. And as the world around us changes, we must ensure that Scotland remains the progressive, internationalist, communitarian country that the majority of us living here want it be."

Scottish Labour's culture, sport, tourism and external affairs spokesperson Lewis Macdonald said Scotland "deserves better than two nationalist governments posturing at each other".

He said: "Only Labour stands for what the majority of Scots want - remaining part of the UK and maintaining our relationship with Europe.

"Labour is the only party which stands by the common values of working together and the pooling and sharing of resources. Hard Brexit supporting Tories or independence supporting nationalists are simply advocating their own form of separation, not a future where we work together.

"It was Scottish Labour which led the criticism of the xenophobic rhetoric from the Tories at their annual conference, and it is Scottish Labour that has challenged the SNP to drop its obsession with dividing our nation."

John Lamont, Scottish Conservative chief whip, said: "Scotland is anything but open for business under the SNP.

"It has made us the highest taxed part of the UK and embarked on a number of anti-business measures. Now it wants to rip us out of a union which is four times more valuable than the EU's.

"Of course Scottish businesses should continue to look to Europe for trade. But for Nicola Sturgeon to suggest this will be some kind of remedy for putting the barriers up with the rest of the UK is irresponsible."