SCOTLAND’s expertise in sectors such as science, energy and creative industries comes under the microscope today in the first of a series of networking events aimed at fostering investment and collaboration opportunities with India.

The inaugural summit at Edinburgh Castle has been organised by Guru for Scots and Vedics (GSV), whose CEO is Nidhin Chand, an Indian businessperson who now lives in Scotland.

She set up GSV to identify investment opportunities across Scotland as well as potential collaborative projects in technology, research and development, education and the arts.

Chand told The National that Scotland was the UK’s most attractive location for foreign direct investment (FDI) after London, and had been for six of the last seven years.

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Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen were among the top 10 UK cities for investment which had been led by the US, Germany, Switzerland and Norway and she wanted to see India climb the leader board.

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“I was a businessperson in India and when I came here my friends arranged a couple of similar events I went to in London.

“This idea came about after them when I was thinking about what I should do to bring together my connections in India and Scotland.

“Initially I was going to have 20 people coming over but five of them have not been able to get their visas in time, because of the Christmas holidays … but they will come over in future because they are potential investors.”

She said among her guests were representatives from Kerala Chamber of Commerce and the multinational conglomerate LuLu Group, who were keen to explore investment possibilities here: “They are hoping to invest in the industrial and housing sectors.

“And there are people from the technology sector who want to collaborate with Scottish firms and institutions involved in that.

“Hyderabad was the first IT city in India in its early days and these people want to see collaboration between that sector in India and in Scotland.”

Chand said there was also interest in the low and zero-emission buses developed by Alexander Dennis and BAE Systems.

“We will have a delegation from the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas India.

“And we have prominent entrepreneurs from India representing the mining industry, education sector and so on.

“Through this platform, we aim to facilitate collaboration between countries focusing on investment promotion, technology transfer, workplace training partnerships and other areas of interest.”