An agreement has been signed that will release £25 million in seed funding from the UK and Scottish governments to support reindustrialisation of the Edinburgh, Fife and Falkirk areas.
The funding for the Forth Green Freeport aims to attract about £8 billion of private and public investment over the next decade.
Scottish Office minister Kirsty McNeill and Deputy First Minister, Kate Forbes joined the Forth Green Freeport chair, Dame Susan Rice and CEO, Sarah Murray, with representatives from the three local authorities to mark the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the two governments.
The seed capital will be match-funded by project leads bringing an initial investment in the area to more than £50m.
The seed capital funding will help prepare the key sites within the FGF area to attract investors in the key target sectors including offshore wind, hydrogen, sustainable fuels, modular manufacturing and logistics.
FGF became operational on 12 June 2024 and over the next 25 years is set to attract new businesses and new jobs into Burntisland, Grangemouth, Leith and Rosyth, aided by a suite of tax and custom incentives to deliver real benefits for Scotland and the UK.
A detailed economic impact assessment has projected that FGF will generate £7.9 billion of private and public investment and boost GVA (gross value added) by £8.1 billion.
The analysis projected that up to 34,500 well paid, skilled jobs, could be created with around 16,000 of these being direct employment in the FGF’s target sectors and tax sites.
Dame Susan said: “This is a momentous day for the entire Forth Green Freeport team as we mark the MoU agreement and release the £25mi of seed capital from the UK Government to help attract significant inward investment.”
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