We move to agenda item 3. Last week, Gordon MacDonald, Lewis Macdonald and I, accompanied by Dougie Wands and Greig Liddell, shadowed a trade mission to Saudi Arabia that was run by SDI in conjunction with UKTI. I will report back briefly on what was discussed.
The joint UKTI and SDI-sponsored mission, called Saudi-British energy week, happened in Al Khobar, which is up on the Persian Gulf coast in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Between 30 and 40 companies were represented; I think that 10 were from Scotland, many of them from the north-east. We attended sessions with the local chamber of commerce, the Asharqia Chamber—I hope that I have pronounced that correctly—and that provided companies with an introduction to the opportunities and challenges of doing business in the region. We met the head of the chamber’s board of directors to discuss opportunities for Scottish businesses in the oil and gas sector, particularly in the Eastern Province, which is Saudi Arabia’s energy hub, and we engaged a lot with the Scottish companies that were participating in the trade mission to understand the objectives of the visit. The feedback was generally very positive, with companies reporting productive meetings with Saudi counterparts and possible leads for future contracts. I think that in the next few weeks the committee will follow things up with those companies to find out the productive benefit of participation in the trade mission.
During our visit, we had a number of discussions with UKTI and SDI officials to better understand the support that they provide to companies that are seeking to internationalise in this market and elsewhere; we met several global Scots working in the region to find out more about the support that they offer Scottish companies that seek to enter the local market; and, with SDI officials, we met representatives from the Al-Qahtani group of companies, which is a Saudi trading family, to discuss opportunities for future partnerships with Scottish companies in the oil and gas and education sectors.
Overall, I felt that the Scottish companies had a favourable impression of the mission and that they thought that the service being offered by UKTI and SDI was praiseworthy. Certainly, the SDI people on the ground were extremely knowledgeable and very well connected and were very good at opening doors and setting up contacts, and it will be interesting to follow things up in a few weeks’ time and find out what concrete business deals have been done as a result of that investment.
Those are my impressions of the visit. Lewis and Gordon, do you wish to add anything?