Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0053/00534.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 28KB | 476 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00534}
$Pretitle{405}
$Title{United Kingdom
The Financial Sector}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Embassy of the United Kingdom, Washington DC}
$Affiliation{Embassy of the United Kingdom, Washington DC}
$Subject{scotland
services
scottish
local
health
social
areas
new
housing
planning}
$Date{1990}
$Log{Glasgow Garden Festival, 1988*0053401.scf
}
Country:     United Kingdom
Book:        Scotland
Author:      Embassy of the United Kingdom, Washington DC
Affiliation: Embassy of the United Kingdom, Washington DC
Date:        1990

The Financial Sector

[See Glasgow Garden Festival, 1988: Courtesy Embassy of the United Kingdom,
New York.]

     The financial services industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors of
the Scottish economy, increasingly attracting investment from overseas, and
playing an important part in the regeneration of Scottish enterprise.
Scotland's financial institutions have a high reputation internationally,
and in a range of services - for example, investment trusts, branch banking,
and unit trusts - Scotland has been a pioneer. About one-third of all
investment funds in Britain are managed from Scotland, which is also a base
for a large number of insurance companies. Edinburgh is regarded as the
country's financial centre, and the headquarters of many financial
institutions are located there, but Glasgow too has important commercial and
banking facilities.

     There are three Scottish clearing banks: the Bank of Scotland, founded in
1695; the Royal Bank of Scotland, founded in 1727; and the Clydesdale Bank,
founded in 1838. While forming an integral part of the British monetary
system, these banks have full powers of independent action and have limited
rights to issue their own banknotes, which are accepted by banks throughout
Britain. The Scottish banks have led with the introduction of new banking
technology in Britain, and the Bank of Scotland is participating in the
operation of Homelink, an electronic banking service for the home. The banks
have offices in London and are also represented overseas, particularly in the
United States and the Far East. The Royal Bank of Scotland operates throughout
Great Britain.

     The greatly increased demand for capital generated by offshore oil
exploration and exploitation provided a new opportunity for Scottish financial
institutions and led to the establishment of a number of indigenous merchant
banks. Both they and the clearing banks have invested substantially in North
Sea oil and gas and have collaborated in ventures related to oil development.

     The Scottish Stock Exchange now forms part of a single system throughout
Britain known as the International Stock Exchange. There are also centres in
Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Transport and Communications

Transport

     As in the rest of Britain, car ownership has increased, and in 1985, 53
per cent of households had the regular use of a car, 12 per cent having the
use of two or more cars. In 1986 there were over 1.5 million vehicles,
including 1.2 million cars (243 per 1,000 population). There are 50,750 km
(31,500 miles) of publicly maintained roads in Scotland, of which about 3,130
km (1,940 miles) are trunk roads or motorways.

     The three main motorways are the M8 Edinburgh-Glasgow-Greenock, the
M9 Edinburgh-Stirling and the M90 Forth Road Bridge-Perth. These motorways,
together with a good dual carriageway system, link the main industrial areas
in central and eastern Scotland with each other. A major priority is
the reconstruction of much of the A75 trunk road linking the Northern Ireland
ferry ports of Stranraer and Cairnryan with the national motorway system.
Further improvements to the motorway and trunk road network are planned,
notably upgrading the A74 trunk road (which runs between Glasgow and
Carlisle) to motorway standard. The three main estuaries of central
Scotland - those of the Clyde, Forth and Tay - are spanned by road bridges,
the last two of which are among the largest in Europe. Construction,
improvement and maintenance of motorways and trunk roads are financed
by the Government: other roads are the responsibility of regional and islands
councils.

     The Transport Act 1985 abolished the system of regulation and state
control of bus services. Initial indications are that, while the level of bus
services has been generally maintained, many local authorities have
achieved substantial savings in subsidies to public transport. There has been
a considerable increase in minibus services in towns and cities. The Transport
(Scotland) Bill would provide for the privatisation of the Scottish Bus Group,
which is responsible for main bus services outside the major cities, and for
the transfer of ownership of Caledonian Macbrayne, which runs ferries to the
islands off the west coast, from the nationalised Scottish Transport Group to
the Secretary of State. The Strathclyde Passenger Transport Executive operates
local bus services and an underground railway in Glasgow, and acts as the
Regional Council's transport policy adviser throughout the Strathclyde area.
In some of the less-populated rural areas there are post-bus services
combining mail deliveries with facilities for passengers.

     The Scottish Region of British Rail operates some 4,900 km (3,100 miles)
of track throughout much of Scotland. InterCity 125 trains - the world's
fastest diesel trains - link Scotland with London (the journey time from
Edinburgh to London is now under 5 hours) and other main cities in England and
Wales, and a scheme to electrify the main line between London and Edinburgh is
in progress, with completion expected by 1991. An 80 million Pounds scheme to
electrify services between Glasgow and Ayr, with a branch to Ardrossan, was
completed in 1986. Commuter services operate between Glasgow, Edinburgh,
Aberdeen and Dundee. A Motorail network allows cars to be transported long
distance by train, and freight services by rail are run on behalf of
individual firms on scheduled timings, although freight traffic has declined
considerably in recent years.

     Scottish ports provide direct container and conventional services to over
100 countries. East-coast ports trade chiefly with the rest of Europe while
west-coast trade is dominated by North America and other deep-sea trading
areas. The most extensive port complexes are those on the Clyde and the Forth.
The Clyde complex, Clydeport, combines the facilities of Glasgow and Greenock,
the deep-water oil terminal at Finnart on Loch Long, the coastal port of
Ardrossan and an iron-ore terminal at Hunterston (opened in 1979 and one of
the world's finest deep-water harbours). On the Forth there are facilities at
Grangemouth, Leith and Granton on the southern side of the Firth and at
Burntisland, Kirkcaldy and Methil on the northern side. Cargo traffic on the
Forth has increased (from 8.3 million tonnes in 1970 to 30 million tonnes in
1987), much of it related to offshore oil and gas. The first purpose-built
terminal for oil from the British sector of the North Sea was completed at
Hound Point on the Forth in 1975. The port of Stranraer handles most of the
traffic to and from Ireland.

     Other major port developments undertaken to handle traffic generated by
offshore oil and gas include the terminals at Flotta and Sullom Voe. Three of
the four jetties at Sullom Voe can handle tankers of up to 350,000 dead-weight
tons, and the fourth jetty handles the export of liquified petroleum gases,
accommodating vessels with a capacity of up to 75,000 cubic metres. A 54
million Pounds terminal at Braefoot Bay in the Firth of Forth handles tankers
carrying natural gas liquids brought from the plant at Mossmorran (Fife).
Supply bases for offshore vessels have been built at Leith, Dundee, Montrose,
Aberdeen, Peterhead and Lerwick.

     Passenger and freight services are operated to all the island groups with
roll-on/roll-off ferries on most routes.

     The principal inland waterways open to navigation are the Caledonian
Canal, from Fort William to In