G8 SUMMIT: Scots Look for Some Local Fallout

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

GLENEAGLES, Apr 27 2005 (IPS) - Scots in Perthshire are perking up for some local benefits from hosting the G8 summit later this summer.

Heads of government from the group of seven rich nations (G7 that comprises the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan) plus Russia will meet at Gleneagles July 6-8. And that could be good news for Perthshire, that particularly pretty county of Scotland where Gleneagles is located.

The good news may not come immediately. ”In the short-term it may have a negative impact because a lot of people will stay away at the time of the summit,” Paul Kyle, economic development manager of the Perth and Kinross council told IPS. ”But it is the medium and long-term benefits we are aiming for.”

In the short term, the county is simply running out of space for all the G8 guests. That could mean two to three thousand officials and as many from the media. Accommodation of every description has been booked months in advance, and over long distances from Gleneagles.

That includes hotels in Edinburgh and now Glasgow, each close to an hour’s drive from Gleneagles. Special coaches are due to be provided to take delegates and media to Gleneagles from places all over Perthshire county, and beyond.

That should present Perthshire with few problems. A local couple set up a company with two buses in 1980 and called it Stagecoach. The company now owns a fleet of 16,000 buses around the world; it could not possibly fit them all into Perthshire.

The accommodation will not be taken for just the three days the summit will last. Officials and business delegations are all over the country already. Among the more recent groups was a group of German business leaders invited to the county to explore business opportunities.

That is just the kind of exposure to the outside world that Perthshire is looking for. Slogans about a spin-off from the global to the local must come true, even if the local world here has not been doing too badly to begin with.

Perthshire has often been the place visitors just pass on way from Edinburgh and Glasgow to the Scottish highlands. But with destination Perthshire for G8 now, the county wants to show its new high-profile visitors that ”Perthshire is an ideal place to visit, to work and to do business in,” Kyle said. ”That’s the message we want to give out from the opportunity that G8 gives us.”

The local council has produced a glossy magazine that describes all sorts of pleasures and possibilities the local area can offer. The county with a population of about 135,000 has a fairly thriving local economy. But any economy would want to borrow from as global an event as a G8 summit to get better.

Unemployment in Perthshire is just 1.9 percent compared to the Scottish average of 3.1 percent. That can sometimes be a problem because companies may think it hard to recruit, Kyle said. The county promises employers a work force from outside the area if necessary.

These are happy problems. The average annual household income in Perth and Kinross is 27,500 pounds (52,400 dollars). At a summit where a priority will be agreeing a plan to lift hundreds of millions in Africa out of poverty at less than a dollar a day, the Perthshire average of 143 dollars a day will not be the most pressing figure that needs improvement.

But nobody expects that Perthshire will be doing anything for Africa if it were to become any les wealthy. Theoretically at least more prosperity can mean more taxes, and more money for the government to inch towards its target of setting aside 0.7 percent of gross national income (GNI) for development aid.

Perthshire has some giant companies like Norwich Union and Scottish and Southern Energy. But it is looking for small investment to add up. More than 90 percent of the workforce is employed in companies that provide work for fewer than 25 people, Kyle says.

Most of the local business is agriculture, food and drink, tourism, travel and transport, crafts and antiques, manufacturing and textiles. And with a fair number of distilleries making Scotch whisky, no one is surprised that one of the towns that Perth in Scotland is twinned with is Cognac in France.

Perthshire keeps prosperous company. But when the powerful sit down to talk matters global, who can deny the claims of the local world all around them.