Ian Bell is right to express outrage at the suggestion that the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund should be allowed to buy into RBS ("It is a breach of trust to sell stake in RBS to Abu Dhabi", The Herald, March 28).
It is of particular interest that the prospective buyer is Abu Dhabi, almost a modern-day byword for wealth. Tens of thousands of Scots have been to Abu Dhabi in the past decade and have seen the fruits of the oil-generated wealth: an amazing transformation of a chunk of desert into a staggering metropolis in three decades.
A couple of years ago I went through the records of the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. I discovered that giving Scotland 85% of the UK's oil production – the widely recognised figure – Scotland had produced more oil than Abu Dhabi between 1980 and 2010. Yet in that period Abu Dhabi had not only financed its economic development, but had run up a sovereign wealth fund of half a trillion dollars. It's funny how the Unionist parties never mention oil wealth, except to warn Scotland that dependence on it will be bad for us.
Nick Dekker,
1 Nairn Way, Cumbernauld.
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