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Scotland in a global market
18/12/2007
The Scottish Government is acting to make Scotland a more competitive place for businesses, Jim Mather said today.
The Enterprise Minister was speaking as the annual Global Connections Survey for 2006 was published.
Mr Mather was also due to meet with representatives of the engineering sector this morning to hear their views on how the industry can develop and how the government can help.
He said:
"This government is acting to make Scotland a more attractive and a more competitive place to do business - both for companies exporting from Scotland and businesses looking to invest here.
"Today's Global Connections Survey shows encouraging growth in exports over 2006 - but we are committed to doing better across the whole of the Scottish economy and ending decades of underachievement.
"That's why the Government Economic Strategy commits the whole of the public sector to work towards creating the right conditions to achieve our aim of increased, sustainable economic growth.
"The draft Scottish budget, reform of the enterprise networks, reducing and removing business rates and meetings like the one I am having with the engineering sector today prove that we are already making our strategy a reality."
The Enterprise Minister has held numerous meetings with various groups of representatives from sectors and industries across the Scottish economy since taking up post. These include tourism, energy, manufacturing and life sciences. The meetings are designed to allow the industries to come together to identify common goals, how they can work together to achieve those goals and what factors are holding them back. It also provides a forum for industry representatives to help government identify what it can do to help.