Talking-up Scotland

I wrote first about the massive growth in income from our expertise in energy creation as much as from energy production itself in December 2016, quoting the Aberdeen Evening Express:

 ‘Scotland’s “expertise in renewable energy” is in demand around the world, with businesses working in more than 40 countries, according to new research. Projects include advising the government of Japan, providing cranes to build wind farms in Morocco and South Africa and working with the World Bank in Chile, industry body Scottish Renewables said.’

Since then, we seen a flurry of reports of Scottish expertise earning billions for the UK economy and presumably becoming a factor in our trade surplus. See for example:

Scotland’s European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) to be test centre for 3 out of 6 new EU-funded offshore renewable energy projects as our expertise begins to earn billions

Scotland’s expertise in renewable power generation now worth billions

Now we read in Subsea UK:

‘The Aberdeen-based National Hyperbaric Centre (NHC), which has been operating in the North-east for more than 25 years is set to see an increase of more than £3m in the annual figures following growth in its consulting, training, testing and hyperbaric welding sectors, over the past six months. The substantial increase is mainly due to securing contracts with global organisations and expanding into new markets, including Africa and Brazil.As a result of the growth, the NHC has taken on an additional ten employees this year to cope with the demand for their wide range of technical dive support services.’

https://www.subseauk.com/3670/multi-million-growth-for-national-hyperbaric-centre

In May this year, recognising this demand, presumably, the Scottish government invested £1 million toward the costs of a new £2.5 million centre of excellence for testing emerging subsea technologies. To be run by Balmoral Offshore Engineering in Aberdeen, the new hyperbaric pressure testing facility will more than double the capacity of large-scale testing vessels from two to five.

http://subseaworldnews.com/2017/05/12/scottish-enterprise-grant-for-subsea-testing-centre/