A Scottish Government minister will highlight plans to create two green freeports in Scotland when he travels to Spain for talks with possible overseas investors.
Trade minister Richard Lochhead is to meet business leaders during a two-day visit.
He will have talks with energy and renewables firms, a digital health company, a leading hotel chain planning to open its first Scottish hotel in 2025, and one of Spain’s top spirits exporters, where bosses are looking to invest in a Scottish distillery.
Mr Lochhead’s trip will close with a meeting at Iberdrola, the Spanish company which owns Scottish Power, where talks will focus on how the firm’s green hydrogen projects align with Scotland’s net-zero ambitions.
The minister said he would be “highlighting the Scottish Government’s commitments to work with investors to develop projects that will enable large-scale, hydrogen production with export routes to Europe”.
READ MORE: Scottish space industry on cusp of momentous year
The Scottish Government’s hydrogen action plan, published in December last year, pledged £100 million in capital funding for renewable hydrogen projects.
Speaking ahead of his visit to Madrid, which starts on Tuesday, Mr Lochhead stressed that “despite ongoing global economic headwinds, and the impacts of Brexit and Covid, Scotland continues to perform well in attracting foreign direct investment”.
He said: “My focus will be on building relationships with new and existing investors, supporting export opportunities and raising Scotland’s profile internationally.
READ MORE: SNP ministers who have met with oil giant behind Rosebank
“It will also be a chance to highlight the benefits of our new Green Freeports to Spanish firms looking for a base in Scotland.”
Plans jointly announced by the Scottish and UK Governments will see two of the new economic zones established on the Cromarty Firth and the Firth of Forth in a bid to boost innovation and growth.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel