Tavish Scott: Dualled A9 could be fast road from China

EDINBURGH Zoo’s pandas arrive on Sunday. The Scottish secretary is flying home from leading a trade delegation to Brazil to welcome them. Quite how you welcome a panda is somewhat beyond me.

The offer of a portion of bamboo will presumably be gratefully received but Mike Moore’s chit-chat on the effervescence of the Bric economies might fall on languid panda ears.

More visitors to the zoo buying stuffed pandas in the shop for Christmas will be a small boost to our faltering economy. Even the coalition government’s most ardent enemy must hope that this week’s Autumn Statement, or mini-budget – or indeed what really was a full blown economic emergency package – will make some economic difference. New ideas were forthcoming to boost investment in road and rail links. Pension funds are to join a new financial mechanism investing in infrastructure. Pension funds under management are one part of the Scottish financial industry that have avoided the fallout from the banking crisis.

So will Scotland’s pension funds invest in Scottish infrastructure? Will dualling the A9 be a Scottish pension-fund-funded road, and if so what’s the payback? This week the boss of China’s £410 billion sovereign wealth fund praised the UK as a place to invest, citing the country as one of the most open economies in the world with a highly reputable legal system and a financial mechanism – private-public partnership – that would allow investment to happen.

The China Investment Corporation is set to make the Merseyside Atlantic Gateway project a reality, with billions of pounds of new quays, deep water harbour space for larger ships, offices and the associated manufacturing facilities. Down on the Thames, an enormous new container port for shipping behemoths is being built. The money is coming from an Arab sovereign wealth fund.

Meanwhile, fresh from taking tea with a sheik or two in the Middle East, Scotland’s First Minister heads for China. Leading trade delegations is more than just photo calls and joint toasts. They are essential opportunities to create new business, and Alex Salmond wants to develop a pattern of inward investment funds to pay for infrastructure and renewables in Scotland. He went to Doha last month to do more than open a legal office. Qatar and the other Gulf states that Mr Salmond visited are awash with sovereign wealth funds. So it is inconceivable that the First Minister missed the opportunity to pitch Scotland for renewable investment potential.

The renewables industry is the SNP’s industrial strategy. Little else now matters. Ministers get out of bed and dream of wind farms and wave machines. They believe that this is Scotland’s unique selling point, but as a result are now tied to a one-trick economic pony. Economic growth will be based on green energy. So it has to work, and that means new money.

But Mr Salmond does not want to depend on London for that investment. Nothing grates more in St Andrew’s House than when the UK government takes action that leads to extra money for Scotland under the byzantine rules devised by Lord Barnett in the 1970s. So investment must come from new sources that have nothing to do with the UK government. Politically, Mr Salmond wants to fund this new Scottish industry without any dependence on the UK. “We did it our way” will be part of the referendum campaign.

So are we set to see competition between UK pension funds and foreign sovereign wealth to dual the A9? What a delicious irony. The capital to Inverness becomes a relatively painless drive, all courtesy of a Middle Eastern emir or the Union dividend. What is there not to like, Mr Salmond?

• Tavish Scott is Liberal Democrat MSP for Shetland