\n Mr Swinney travels to Shetland on Wednesday and will undertake a series of visits and engagements in relation to his government\u2019s priorities of eradicating child poverty, improving public services, growing the economy and protecting the planet.\n<\/p>\n
\n His itinerary will include visits to a nursery, Lerwick Port Authority, University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) Scalloway and a local crofting business, before he returns to the mainland on Thursday.\n<\/p>\n
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\n Mr Swinney said: \u201cI have always been clear that I am First Minister for all of Scotland \u2013 including people living and working on our incredible islands.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThis will be my second visit to Shetland as First Minister and I am very much looking forward to returning to see progress, witness some very innovative projects and hear directly from people to understand more about the challenges and opportunities of island life.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cShetland will play a significant role in our efforts to drive economic growth, and is well placed to help Scotland capitalise on the many benefits offered by the renewables revolution \u2013 particularly through the expansion of the Deep Water Quay at Lerwick Harbour, supported by \u00a31.175 million funding delivered by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), as part of the Scottish Government<\/a>\u2019s commitment to invest up to \u00a3500 million over five years to develop Scotland\u2019s ports and offshore wind supply chain.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cThis important project will help attract investment, create jobs and boost prosperity in Shetland and beyond.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cLocal producers in Shetland also play a vital role in driving Scotland\u2019s food and drink industry forward fuelling one of the country\u2019s most successful export sectors with world-class quality and authenticity.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Mr Swinney also said that Shetland is one of six childcare \u201cearly adopter communities\u201d areas across Scotland which are expanding access to childcare for families who need it most \u2013 and testing new approaches to delivering childcare in a rural island community.\n<\/p>\n \n He said: \u201cThese examples illustrate Shetland\u2019s importance in delivering my government\u2019s ambitions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mr Swinney travels to Shetland on Wednesday and will undertake a series of visits and engagements in relation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-81705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}