Edinburgh best large city in Europe for foreign direct investment
Cllr Tom Buchanan, Economic Development Convener, comments on Edinburgh's recent awards from fDI magazine on Scotland's Independent Regeneration Network blog.
Edinburgh's recent rating as Europe's top large city for inward investment is richly deserved.
In the last 12 months alone we've secured more than 30 new foreign direct investment projects. These include Amazon (US), Swiss Life (Switzerland), Toshiba (Japan), Sixt (Germany), Finmeccanica (Italy), Talent2 (Australia) and InfoSys (India).
Indeed, despite the economic downturn and fierce competition from across Europe, Scotland's capital has secured more new investment over the last three years than in the previous five.
The publication's European Cities and Regions of the Future rankings are subject to huge competition and therefore closely watched every year by the world's investment community.
The shortlisting process takes more than six months and involves analysing and collecting data from more than 200 cities and 140 regions. So we are thrilled to be named Overall Winner in the Large European Cities ranking for foreign direct investment. This puts us at the top of a league that includes major cities such as Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Birmingham and - significantly - marks Edinburgh's debut as a 'Large European City' (500,000 to 1m population).
Harnessing cultural and academic links gives us another route to new markets in Asia, the US and the Middle East. Examples include collaborations between the Edinburgh and Abu Dhabi Science Festivals, valuable Chinese links through the arrival of the pandas in Edinburgh and connections with San Francisco and New York via the Clipper Round the World Yacht race.
Supporting inward investment is central to the City of Edinburgh Council's new Economic Strategy, and over the next five years we will be developing this service further. Edinburgh has also secured a top ten place in another four Large City categories: Business Friendliness, Economic Potential, Human Resources and Quality of Life. It is these assets, when combined, that make our city such a magnet for investors: our highly qualified workforce, our diverse business base, our resilience - and the cultural and lifestyle benefits that make Edinburgh a truly Inspiring Capital.
With all this on our side, we believe Edinburgh will increasingly draw talent and investment from around the world, in turn creating high quality jobs for our community. This is why supporting investors - as our new economic strategy sets out - is our number one priority to drive growth and employment across Edinburgh.
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