Question to the Scotland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what steps his Department is taking to attract Foreign Direct Investment to Scotland.

The Scotland Office works closely with the Department for International Trade (DIT) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to promote investment opportunities in Scotland to a global audience. Next week I will travel to Hong Kong and Japan to promote trade and investment opportunities for businesses in Scotland.

As part of the UK Government’s goal to rebalance the UK economy, we are ensuring that foreign investors know about the strengths of all parts of the UK, including Scotland. DIT, through contracted partners from the Investment Services Team (IST), owns and manages the national pipeline of potential investments into the UK. These are sourced from staff posted overseas in the UK’s diplomatic and consular network across the globe in over 100 markets.

DIT reports that in 2016-17, Scotland secured 183 FDI projects, creating around 5,500 jobs. This is the best ever performance by Scotland and shows an increase of 75 projects compared to the previous year.