OIL tycoon Sir Ian Wood has pledged £25 million to set up a new development body in the north-east.
The economic body, of which Sir Ian will be chairman, is to replace the Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Future (Acsef), which is to be abolished after promoting business in the region since 2008.
The seed money provided by Sir Ian to set up Opportunity North East (ONE) will be matched by other sources, including Scottish Enterprise.
The new body's creation comes amid an ongoing downturn in the North Sea oil industry, on which the economy of Scotland's north-east is heavily reliant.
The aim is to steer the region's economy along a path toward greater diversification, namely in tourism, life sciences and food and drink, as well as in oil and gas, with the aim of creating a “sustainable economic future” for the area.
The expected pot of £50m will be used by the public-private partnership to develop the four sectors.
Sir Ian said: “ONE is the private sector’s response to the challenge of transforming our economy.
“Significant under-investment in infrastructure, both physical and digital, a high cost of living, and an economy dominated by oil and gas have combined to present us with a major challenge.
“The current downturn in oil and gas has cast the issues we face into even sharper relief and there are essentially two routes ahead: a renaissance which sees us revitalise the region’s economy or a slow decline towards becoming a museum for the golden age of North Sea oil and gas.”
Sir Ian became a major player in the oil sector through his role as, firstly, chief executive and then chairman of the Wood Group, whom he helped grow from a largely local operation to an oil sector services company with operations in more than 50 countries.
In 2007 he set up the Wood Foundation, a venture philanthropy organisation, with his family.
Regarding the creation of ONE, he added: “The business community is increasingly aware of the bleak prospect that could face us [in the north-east] if we don’t get our act together now and take concerted action to secure a sustainable and balanced economy in the future.
“ONE will therefore target its actions on sector-specific projects of scale, leveraging additional resources from the public and private sectors - which will realise the greatest returns for the region in the future, in terms of economic growth and employment.”
While the board of Acsef is to be formally dissolved, many of its executives are expected to take up roles at the new body.
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