Oil prices will rise again by 2018 and reinvigorate economic activity in the North Sea, according to a billionaire Scottish Government adviser.
Jim McColl, who sits on the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisers, told Holyrood’s Economy Committee his own Clyde Blowers’ engineering investment firm is “holding out quite well” in the economically-depressed North Sea and he predicted the downturn will reverse in the next two years.
Increased oil and gas production contributed to the 0.7% rise in the UK economy announced yesterday but this has yet to feed through to the Scottish onshore economy, leaving Scotland’s GDP lagging behind at just 0.1% growth.
