George Kerevan: Greeks may in fact have a dram good reason to riot

ONE predictable result of the austerity drive in Greece is that they are drinking less Scotch. Greek taxes on spirits went up three times last year as part of the government's austerity push.

As a result, whisky sales have plummeted. No wonder they are rioting in Athens.

However, there was good news for the whisky industry this week with the signing of a radical free trade deal between South Korea and the EU. South Korea's 20 per cent import duty on spirits is being phased out, along with devious rules about labelling aimed deliberately at making life difficult for importers.

At present, South Koreans are forced to imbibe a local spirit, soju, which has some 97 per cent of the local market. Scotch whisky accounts for less than 1 per cent. Even then, whisky was the UK's biggest export to South Korea last year. Not that I've ever tasted the special export brands we send. Have you sipped Windsor or Imperial Classic (invented in 1994, using imported bulk blends)?

But this is not just another "good news" tale. The importance of this EU trade deal is that one of the emerging economies in Asia - which are driving global growth - is willing for the first time to open its markets to western imports. If it took a few bottles of Scotch whisky to do that, western countries should cheer. Where whisky leads, so should our high-value engineering exports.

Here's the problem. In 2010, Scottish manufactured exports grew by only 1.6 per cent, in real terms, compared with 2009. In the right direction, but hardly enough to offset the huge dent in domestic consumption following the 2008 recession.

Worse: while Scottish exports grew in most product lines in 2010, there was actually a drop of 4.2 per cent in engineering sales. Compare that with whisky exports, which hit a record 3.45 billion in 2010 - 10 per cent up on the previous year.

In South Korea, on the other hand, related carmakers Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors have just announced double-digit annual sales growth, driven by exports of new models. It is chastening to remember that South Korea began its ascent to industrialisation by buying redundant machine tools from bankrupt Clyde shipbuilders, back in the Seventies.

Or that the technology from the old car Linwood car factory in Renfrew helped start the South Korean car industry. Enough to make you reach for the bottle.

Murdoch makes mistakes but he is still an education

Talking of Scottish exports, this week Rupert Murdoch dumped his MySpace social networking site after six years. He bought MySpace in 2005 for $580 million (360m) and sold it for a mere $35m. Another sign the media mogul has lost the plot? Perhaps not.

Murdoch is a gambler.His early acquisition of MySpace - while Facebook was still in its infancy - showed his market antenna are as good as ever, even if he is now an octogenarian. Unfortunately, as has happened before, Murdoch does not always know how to turn his hunches into commercial success.

And he is inclined to pay over the odds. In 2007 he bought Dow Jones, parent company of the Wall Street Journal, for $5bn only to see it written down to $2bn about a year later. Result: News Corp's shares are down 13 per cent over the same span.

But don't write off the old maestro just yet. His commercial instincts are still bovine.

Popular programming has made money-spinners of his television channels on both sides of the Atlantic, which is why News Corp shareholders should be happy with the UK government's provisional decision to let Murdoch acquire the rest of BSkyB. Even at 80, Murdoch remains intellectually restless. Last year News Corp plunged into the 310bn US education sector, paying 225m for Wireless Generation, which provides mobile and web software for teachers.

In a speech last month, Murdoch described education as "the last holdout from the digital revolution", claiming online technology will transform schools in the same way it did the business world. This is fuelling speculation that he is planning further buys in the education technology sector, competing with established players Pearson and McGraw-Hill. Murdoch has also hired Joel Klein, the boss of New York's public school system, to run a new education division in News Corp.

If you were worried by Rupert Murdoch owning your newspaper or television channel, just imagine him investing in schools. Or will this be another MySpace?