Brand Scotland must choose partners wisely

This is all about “selling Scotland, its products and services, to the world” and “encouraging inward investment in Scotland”. Leaving aside how it may (or may not) dovetail with the Scottish government’s existing efforts through Scottish Development International, it is important that the minister is in Singapore.

That’s because the city-state has much to offer the UK, and vice-versa, at a time of worrying geopolitical fracture. Both countries are navigating great power competition and must in particular deal intelligently with China. Last year, they signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership”, which includes strengthening co-operation on digital and cyber defences and work on a “green economy framework”.

Two-way investment figures tell a story of increasing interdependence. As of last year UK investment in Singapore was about 60 per cent higher by value than it had been in 2018, and investment by Singapore companies in the UK was double the 2019 level. Last month, private-hire taxi company Addison Lee was snapped up by ComfortDelGro, a Singapore taxi fleet business that also operates 17 per cent of London’s bus routes.

Now, Singapore has set its sights on Scotland’s offshore wind sector. The city-state has long been a hub for the marine and offshore industry, including ship and rig building and port management. These capabilities are being transferred into a rapidly growing marine renewables industry and the fabrication of the kit needed in offshore wind.

This summer Enterprise Singapore (equivalent to Scottish Enterprise) brought a delegation of nine Singapore companies in marine renewables to Aberdeen to assess opportunities in the offshore wind supply chain – for which the Scottish government will next week unveil a fresh round of budget support. One of them, Mooreast, plans to build a factory in Aberdeen to make the vast anchors that tether floating wind farms via cables to the seabed.

Attracting inward investment from countries that are strategic allies matters in a world of increasing “friend-shoring”. That’s especially true in critical energy infrastructure like offshore wind, which is tied to a country’s transmission system and grid. Much of this relies on digital technology that is vulnerable to cyber-attacks and other forms of hybrid warfare designed to disrupt.

The UK must think strategically about which countries should be involved in offshore wind, where ultimate control of the operational software embedded in turbines rests with the manufacturer of the equipment, not the wind farm developer.

This has Scottish relevance because China’s largest offshore wind turbine manufacturer, Mingyang, hopes to build a turbine factory in the Inverness area and is in discussions with Cerulean Winds, a North Sea developer, about supplying it with turbines.

Germany recently announced that it views wind farms as critical infrastructure and will apply strict cyber security laws to ensure turbines cannot be manipulated. It is time the UK, mindful of offshore wind assets in Scotland – and of its allies – takes this seriously.

Jeremy Grant is a freelance writer and editor, and was a journalist at the Financial Times and Reuters for 25 years.