WATCH: Sumitomo factory at Nigg can have ‘major impact’ on Highland economy, says Scottish net zero secretary
Rural areas like the Highlands can lead the way during the “greatest economic and social opportunity of our time”, Scotland’s cabinet secretary for net zero and energy has said.
Speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony for Sumitomo Electric’s new state-of-the-art cable manufacturing plant, MSP Màiri McAllan said the new facility as the potential to create hundreds of jobs and would have a “major impact” in the Highland region.
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Ms McAllan said: “This is the first investment of its kind from Sumitomo Electric Industries in Europe, and it will be the only high voltage cable manufacturing plant in the UK.
“When you consider just how important these cables are to the deployment of offshore wind, which in turn is so important to tackling climate change and growing our economy, you really see the magnitude of what we are talking about today.”
She added: “(The facility) has the potential to create hundreds of jobs, including 150 high paid manufacturing jobs in the plant itself which will have a major impact locally, but its also of national and international significance.
“The energy transition and tackling climate change is an environmental imperative and a moral obligation, but doing it correctly it can serve as perhaps the greatest economic and social opportunity of our time in Scotland.
“Having worked on net zero policy for a number of years its been clear to me that communities in rural and island Scotland are principally where much of that work is going to be led.”
