The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Liz Cameron
Businesses in Scotland are currently focusing all our energy, investment and time into rebuilding. We are making sure we have supplies.
We are well along the way to redesigning our operations to meet all health and safety guidance. We are doing our utmost to ensure our efforts restore the confidence that stimulates consumer demand. This is what has been uppermost in our minds, whatever size of business or sector we operate in. Our focus has been honed sharp like a razor on the immediate action we need to put in place to hopefully survive.
The sad truth is we have already experienced the first wave of job losses and the pain which that brings to us as individuals, to our families, and to society in general. We do not know yet what the scale of the additional impact on our jobs will be when the UK Government’s highly successful furlough scheme comes to an end, or the more recent Kickstart scheme and the Jobs Retention Bonus scheme. When these and the raft of other financial and business support provided by the UK and Scottish Governments ceases, then we will know where we are.
However, while we are managing the here and now, the chamber network has been continuing to develop models to enable growing trade between Scotland and the rest of the world.
Why is this important? At the end of this year, we will no longer be part of the European Union, one of our biggest trading partners. Covid-19 is a global phenomenon that has impacted trade and economies everywhere. We must learn from this and begin to explore new opportunities. It is now more important than ever that we channel our investment and resources to look outward, getting contracts and connections for Scottish businesses to explore, identify new ways to sell our products and our services, and promote Scotland’s assets and the enormous talent we possess.
All of this was reinforced at a recent round table – held via a video conference, of course – with Woody Johnson, the ambassador of the United States of America to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, organised by the Scottish Government’s cross-party USA Trade Group. We discussed finding a quick resolution to reduce and eliminate recent trade tariffs which are crippling to our food and drink, textile, and tourist sectors as a result of the ongoing negotiations to resolve the Airbus dispute with Europe. We remain hopeful that this can be moved on to the mutual benefit of both our countries.
It is often individuals from outside of Scotland looking in who give us the chance to see ourselves as others see us and remind us of our global reputation and the high credibility and trust we in Scotland have across the world. It takes “Brand Scotland” to a different level – we invented free trade, we export our talent with many of our people setting great businesses up and attracting investment in and out of Scotland.
The UK is now entering round three of our trade negotiations with the USA to produce a free trade agreement (FTA) which will hopefully remove barriers, and create new opportunities to import and export, some of which we have not even identified yet. We all need to look at opportunity in a new and different way to lead on innovation, and for Scottish business to remain competitive with the USA. This new FTA could remove barriers, legislation, and incentives for small and mediumsized businesses to take the risks to enter new markets.
I am confident that Scottish businesses have the ambition and the vision to rise to these occasions. And US trade is only the start.
The coronavirus pandemic has proved that necessity is the mother of invention, if we needed to heed that lesson again. While travel restrictions are in place we continue to support trade missions – virtual ones.
The first took place when Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce was forced to hastily rearrange plans for a scheduled trade mission to Pennsylvania, USA, when it became clear participants would not be able to fly to their destination.
Instead, the Edinburgh chamber team acted to secure more than 20 meetings between representatives of seven Scottish businesses with peers and advisers in Philadelphia. These were mainly conducted by phone or video calls which took place over the three days of the mission, 21-23 March, and was deemed to be a great success.
The Scottish Chambers of Commerce has since launched a series of nearly 30 virtual trade missions in partnership with the Scottish Government and we’d urge all businesses who are considering new markets to consider taking part. What one aspect of this brave new world of post-coronavirus business has proved is just how essential digital connectivity is. In Scotland it has highlighted a gulf between the digital haves and have-nots, whether this is due to “digital poverty” or poor infrastructure particularly in rural areas. Both are blights which must be addressed urgently.
This is no longer about bringing a digital revolution – it is a now a matter of it being a digital necessity if we are to rebuild and grow our economy in all parts of Scotland.
We must learn from this pandemic and begin to explore new opportunities