Brian Wilson: The Harris and Seoul of diplomacy

Harris Tweed Hebrides, which I chair, is one of 30 UK companies taking part in a British Lifestyle Showcase under the auspices of United Kingdom Trade International and Scottish Development International. The event will take place in the grounds of the British Embassy – as ever, one of the best addresses in town.

Since my days as UK trade minister, I have been enthused by the direct linkage between efforts abroad and jobs at home. In politics, there is often a lot of smoke, mirrors and convenient time lapses which separate claims made from outcomes delivered. But with trade there is no opportunity for deception or delusion. Orders mean jobs so the stakes are visible and high.

Trade takes many beneficial forms. But it is with tangible products that the linkage is most obvious. Nobody used to have any doubt about that before it became the bizarre received wisdom that making things in order to sell them did not actually matter. A lot of factories, mills and workshops were needlessly sacrificed on the altar of that false doctrine.

For what survives of British manufacturing industry, exporting is still as important as it ever was. To take our own example, 90 per cent of Harris Tweed produced in the Western Isles is exported. And that in turn means that 200 jobs are wholly dependent on persuading consumers around the world to buy the stuff – which, fortunately, they seem more than willing to do.

Japan is now our biggest market, ahead of Germany. They love not only the fabric but also the narrative and heritage which accompany it. Korea has lots of potential to follow. But it is salutary to recall that markets can be lost as well as won. For decades, the vast majority of Harris Tweed – then produced in quantities far greater than today – went to the United States. In the mid-1980s that market suddenly collapsed and is only now reviving. There always has to be a Plan-B.

Trade has the potential to be one of the great forces for good in the world and it’s a pity that it became unfashionable to proclaim that truth. The economic foundations of our own Scottish society were built on selling whatever we could produce to the four corners of the earth. An enthusiastic revival of that habit could go a long way towards curing current economic ills.

Britain’s trade figures were once regarded as a key barometer of economic wellbeing. Famously, Harold Wilson lost the 1970 general election on the back of balance of trade figures which saw us dip slightly into the red, causing shock and horror at the time. Now, nobody gives a toss. In 2010, the UK had a deficit of £100 billion in manufactured goods and it hardly rated a mention. That is a fundamental mistake.

To some extent, the balance is redressed by the sale of services and we are still very good at providing the skills required to deliver great projects. A few years ago, I spent time here promoting British involvement in the Incheon Bridge, a wonderful piece of engineering and design which now links the international airport to downtown Seoul. As well as the immediate benefits, the spin-offs from that one project have been many and varied, creating a continuing flow of work at home. That’s the way trade works.

Governments cannot do the job, but they can certainly help. A classic example was in the late 1990s when companies clustered around the North Sea oil industry faced hard times because the price of oil had dropped below $10 a barrel and nobody was investing. At that time, government and private sector worked hand-in-hand to turn hundreds of companies in the sector into exporters, creating huge benefits, which have persisted long after the North Sea recovered.

One role for government and its agencies is to make it easier for businesses to take the first steps into exporting. As I have learned over the years, the network of British Embassies around the world provides a fantastic resource to support exporters in locations of all shapes and sizes – and invariably there are Scots to the fore. Here in Seoul, the ambassador Scott Wightman is from Edinburgh and the head of UKTI, Douglas Barratt, from Clydebank. We are well represented.

Trade and investment go hand in hand. Last year, a European Union-Korea Trade Agreement paved the way for lower tariffs on products such as Scotch whisky, for which this is a huge market. But it also made it easier for the Koreans to invest in industries such as renewable energy and life sciences which are of particular interest to Scotland. Again, government has a huge part to play in making sure we are ahead of the pack in securing these opportunities which is why we need to be well represented around the world.

In the 1950s, this was one of the poorest countries on the face of the earth; now it is the world’s 12th biggest economy and growing. Even 20 years ago, the idea of selling British luxury goods in any serious quantity to South Korea would have seemed far-fetched.

Next week, Barack Obama and an international cast will be in Seoul for a nuclear security summit. Its focus is supposed to be nuclear terrorism, but the North Koreans have craftily hijacked the agenda, with an announcement of plans to launch a rocket with the alleged potential to transport a nuclear missile. Thus continues the long history of sabre-rattling and mutual paranoia.

Yet, when I met an old associate now deeply involved in behind-the-scenes work to promote dialogue between the two Koreas, I heard a more optimistic story. Behind the rhetoric, he said, the North Koreans are desperate to emerge from their global bunker, but they don’t know how.

Trust has to be built and the key to achieving that is through economic contact – otherwise known as trade. It seems that, as so often in the past under comparable circumstances, trade can – metaphorically as well as literally – build the best bridges.