Nicola’s £10bn China deal collapses

A CONTROVERSIAL £10billion deal between the SNP Government and a Chinese consortium has collapsed.

Nicola Sturgeon signed off a ‘memorandum of understanding’ with a Far East consortium at Bute House in March.

But the deal was criticised by opposition parties amid concerns about the human rights records of the firms involved.

It emerged yesterday the state-backed SinoFortone and China Railway No 3 Engineering Group backed out of the deal three months ago after the political fallout was badly received in the Far East, where the agreement was known as the ‘Scottish shambles’.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: ‘Groups such as Amnesty International expressed concerns but the SNP covered their ears and ploughed on.

‘They showed a casual disregard for human rights.’

Scottish Labour economy spokesman Jackie Baillie said: ‘Scotland deserves answers on this backroom deal – the whole affair poses serious questions about the transparency and competence of SNP ministers.

‘The SNP Government’s handling of this has been cackhanded from the beginning.’

Scottish Conservative finance spokesman Murdo Fraser said: ‘It’s embarrassing that the Chinese have pulled the plug on a deal the Government promised would provide billions of pounds of investment.’ When the China deal became public, there was a backlash over reports that the parent of CR3, China Railway Group, had been blacklisted by the Norwegian government’s oil investment fund, which pulled its £ 6million stake in the business.

The fund’s ethics council said there was a ‘high degree of probability’ the company ‘paid bribes to government officials for contracts’ in China.

A spokesman for Economy Secretary Keith Brown said: ‘We did not consider that the MoU had been cancelled but were aware that SinoFortone felt they could not move ahead at that time in the climate of hostility they faced.

‘They continued to believe in the benefits of an infrastructure partnership with China and we remain committed to pursuing these opportunities.

‘The opposition should be ashamed if their actions, in search of cheap headlines, have put up to £10billion of investment at risk.’