IN its last two articles for The National, the Scottish Banking & Finance Group (SBFG) has been focusing on the importance of domestic ownership of infrastructure and businesses in key economic sectors and on the vital role our banks and other financial institutions have in the allocation of capital to support the domestic economy and domestic ownership of production and infrastructure.
In making this proposition, we are not in any way suggesting Scottish independence should be accompanied by a wholesale expropriation of foreign-owned assets. Doing that would create massive disruption to our economy and to our international standing.
What we are saying is that Scottish-owned companies and infrastructure should be given maximum support when it is needed and that when foreign companies decide to close factories down and relocate production elsewhere the opportunity to bring these factories back into Scottish ownership should be taken. The provision of capital to enable this to happen must come from our own banks and other financial institutions.