Scotland's Economy

Scottish produce top of the menu in Japan

April 17, 2012 by John Swinney MSP No Comments | Category Exports, Investment

An early start to day two of my Japan visit and the focus continues to be on Scotland’s growth industries. Over lunchtime, Scottish Development International put together an excellent event to showcase Scotland’s wonderful food and drink – one of our largest export successes.

SDI procured supplies of seafood from Loch Fyne Oysters and the chef of the Imperial Hotel, Yoshiaki Takahashi, used them as a basis to create a menu of Scottish food with a Japanese twist. The audience of chefs, importers, buyers and food writers thought the quality was outstanding. There was general agreement that more Scottish produce needed to appear on the menu in Japan, especially when we showed an inspiring film about the roots of the food and drink sector in Scotland.

My meetings with companies focused today on opportunities in the creative industries and renewables and there are some very real prospects for success and development – some of them at a very advanced stage.

I also continued my Governmental meetings with an excellent discussion with the Senior Vice Minister for the Economy Mitsuyoshi Yanagisawa. I expressed our sympathy with the people of Japan over the terrible events created by the tsunami in March 2011 and we talked over the potential for co-operation on renewables development between our two countries.

The last part of the day is a journey by bullet train to Osaka. What a swift and pleasant journey and demonstrates just what benefit we would get from bringing high speed rail to Edinburgh and Glasgow!

Tags: Japan, renewables, Scottish produce, SDI

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