Two Chinese companies which have signed a multibillion-pound investment agreement with the Scottish Government will not be put off by political criticism of the talks, the UK adviser to one of the firms has said.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon signed a “memorandum of understanding” (MoU) last month with SinoFortone and China Railway No 3 Engineering Group (CR3) which could be worth up to £10 billion.
But it has since emerged that China Railway Group Limited (CRG), the owner of CR3, has been hit by corruption allegations in its homeland which resulted in Norway’s oil fund blacklisting the firm.
Ms Sturgeon said earlier this week that she was “not aware” of the allegations against the parent company.
But opposition parties raised questions over the level of scrutiny carried out by the Scottish Government before the MoU was signed.
Speaking on the election campaign trail in Edinburgh on Wednesday, Ms Sturgeon said: “What happened is we signed a memorandum of understanding to explore options for investment.
“If we get to the stage where there are any proposals for investment, then full due diligence will be done at that stage. That’s how these things normally happen.
“There are no actual proposals on the table at this stage, and if that changes then those proposals will go through the normal process.”
Sir Richard Heygate, senior adviser for CR3, said there were some specific projects in mind, including for affordable housing in three areas of Scotland.
Speaking in an interview on BBC Radio Scotland, he said: “We could not be more squeaky clean in terms of backing from the very top of the Chinese state.”
He added: “The companies that we are dealing with, you could not be more A star star star in terms of reliability, credibility and backing…”
The Scottish Government was already under fire from its political opponents for not publicising the MoU at the time it was signed. Instead, news of the agreement had been published on the SinoFortone website on March 21.
Asked about his response to the political criticism of the talks, Sir Richard said it would not put the companies off investing.
