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Minister comments on export figures
09/01/2008
Enterprise Minister Jim Mather today said the Scottish Government is committed to making Scotland more competitive in order to increase exports and achieve the government's objective of increased sustainable growth.
He was commenting on the publication of the Index of Manufactured Exports for the third quarter of 2007. The figures showed that:
- Over the year as a whole to the third quarter, manufactured exports grew by 4.3 per cent
- Compared to Quarter Two, there was a drop of 5.1 per cent, which is largely the result of particularly strong growth in the engineering sector in the second quarter returning to more normal levels
Mr Mather said:
"The mixed picture on exports mean we cannot afford to be satisfied and need to aspire to increasing our exports much further.
"That aspiration is a crucial part of the Government's Economic Strategy and we know that our moves on refocusing the Enterprise Networks, reforming the planning system and lowering business rates will help achieve that goal.
"And we are also doing much more by holding consultation sessions with industry sectors such as Electronics, Engineering, Life Sciences and Textiles, which have been enthusiastically received, where we are helping their member businesses collaborate and co-operate in order to be more competitive abroad.
"This also means that we are working with these industries to identify and remove constraints to growth and encouraging more co-operation across sectoral boundaries.
"We believe this will deliver both better export results in the short term and boost support for Scotland to gain the powers needed to take our competitiveness to new heights."