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US businesses urged to 'go east'
31/03/2008
American businesses have been encouraged to "go east" to invest in Scotland, with First Minister Alex Salmond giving a Harvard University audience an assessment of Scotland's economic prospects.
Paraphrasing Horace Greeley's famous 1840's call to young American's to "go west", Mr Salmond said that the Scottish Government's determination to build a Celtic Lion economy would make Scotland the ideal base for American companies expanding into Europe.
The First Minister's comments came on the eve of a major tax cut for 120,000 of Scottish small businesses, lowering their fixed costs and allowing them grow and compete.
Read the First Minister's full speech
On the first day of a Scotland Week programme which will see him deliver a trilogy of keynote speeches on the economy, democracy and renewable energy, Mr Salmond addressed a joint gathering of Harvard's Center for European Studies and Business Schools, where he said:
"The legendary Horace Greeley urged a generation of Americans to 'Go west, young man'. Nearly 200 years later, the time is right for American business to focus their investment in a different direction.
"My message now is 'Go east, young industry'. East to Scotland. Invest in the economies of the future, where the prospects are brightest. And make that investment in Scotland, which I believe has one of the brightest prospects across all Europe.
"Our ambition is to build a 'Celtic Lion' economy - a new economic powerhouse in the 21st century.
"And on the eve of a major tax cut for well over 100,000 small businesses, it is an ambition this Government is taking direct action to bring to reality.
"My message to companies and individuals across America is to share and join in on our success.
"The big winners of globalisation are the smaller but dynamic trading nations of Europe - those countries with the skills and the flexibility to claim a major stake in the knowledge economy and the sectors of the future.
"There's strong evidence of this in the UN Human Development Index, which among the top five nations in the world we see three of our European neighbours - Ireland, Iceland and Norway, an Arc of Prosperity to our west, north and east.
"We now have in place strategies and ambitions to raise our game - and our growth - to at least match the growth rate of those small independent countries around us within 10 years.
"Our economic potential is clear - only last month the Financial Times' influential fDi magazine awarded Scotland the title of Europe's place of the future.
"This is because Scotland is a nation on the move. There is a new ambition for our country, and for our economy. We will accept nothing less than success.
"I encourage the American people and American businesses to share in this exciting future."
The First Minister was speaking at Harvard University's Mindu de Gunzburg Center for European Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a speech jointly hosted by Harvard's Business School.
On Tuesday, April 1, Mr Salmond will address the University of Virginia on the subject of 'Scotland and America - Lessons from the Land of Jefferson'.
On Wednesday, April 2 he will make a major speech on renewable energy to the National Geographic Society at the Washington HQ.