SCOTTISH Secretary Ian Murray has set off on a trip to south east Asia to launch “Brand Scotland”.
He will visit Malaysia then spend St Andrew’s Day in Singapore to promote Scottish products – despite claims by his critics at home Labour are hammering Scottish businesses.
The five-day trip will see Murray meet businesspeople and university officials in Malaysia, including a visit to Heriot Watt University’s campus in Putrajaya.
He will also attend the signing of a deal between the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the National University of Malaysia to have Malaysian surgical students trained in Scotland.
On the second leg of the trip, Murray will attend the Singapore St Andrew’s Society annual ball and meet trade minister Grace Fu.
He will also tour HMS Spey, a Royal Navy warship built in Scotland with a permanent presence in the Indo-Pacific and currently visiting Singapore.
SNP MSP David Torrance (above) said: “Ian Murray should address the damage that his Government is causing businesses across Scotland as a result of its disastrous Budget last month.
“From the increase in employers’ National Insurance payments, the duty increase on Scotch Whisky and the failure to address the damage caused by Brexit – Labour's budget is hitting the very businesses Ian Murray is claiming to promote.”
Alba Party general secretary Chris McEleny said: "I have no issue with the Secretary of State for Scotland promoting 'brand Scotland' across the world but it highlights the hypocrisy at the heart of Labour’s anti-independence argument in that in one hand they think we are too wee and too poor to be a successful independent country but on the other they are all too happy to promote Scottish exports to prop up the UK economy.”
Murray said: “Brand Scotland is about selling Scotland, its products and services, to the world, from shipbuilding, science and salmon, to scotch, culture and financial services.
“It is also about encouraging inward investment in Scotland. I am delighted that many Scottish businesses, the higher education sector, and cultural groups will support our trip.”
Singapore is Scotland’s tenth-biggest foreign trade partner overall and seventh-biggest excluding oil and gas exports.
Scotland exports £130 million worth of goods to Malaysia, compared with £575m to Singapore.
His visit comes less than a month before the UK’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a free trade body formed after Donald Trump (below) torpedoed ambitions for the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
While the UK Government expects that membership of the partnership will boost Scottish exports – including by the removal of Malaysia’s import tariff on Scotch whisky – the CPTPP has been criticised in the past.
The Scottish Government previously raised concerns that lower standards in food production in some member states could undermine standards in UK-grown produce.
