The Sino-Scottish engagement is expanding to various sectors including investment, education, culture as well as people-to-people exchanges, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said in a recent interview with Xinhua.

Sino-Scottish cooperation is getting stronger and stronger in terms of Chinese investment in the oil industry of Scotland such as refinery and also in terms of renewable energy, as a number of Scottish companies are making investment in China for the development of offshore wind, Salmond told Xinhua in Aberdeen, a major city in northeast Scotland.

"I would expect the cooperation to continue a pace as China and Scotland develop all of their energy resources," said the first minister after he opened an energy services operation headquarters of Intertek, a leading provider of quality and safety solutions for a wide range of industries around the world.

As for cultural exchanges, Salmond said, "Economic and culture cooperations go together."

"We have been very pleased with the developments on the cultural side," he said.

He described the tremendous success of the National Ballet of China at last year's Edinburgh International Festival and the signing of the memorandum of understanding between the Festival and the Chinese side as "a strong indication of future cooperation on the cultural side."

On education, he said, "A huge number of Chinese students are now studying in Scotland."

Confucius Institutes and classrooms are also gaining momentum in Scotland as there are more Chinese students studying in Scotland and more Scottish students learning the Chinese language, according to Salmond.

The first minister hailed the cooperation between Scotland and China on the digital mapping of the Eastern Royal Tombs of the Qing Dynasty.

Salmond also mentioned the two Chinese pandas Tian Tian and Yang Guang who arrived at Edinburgh Zoo in December 2011 when he delivered a keynote speech Monday at the "Scotland in Conversation with China" series program event hosted by University of Aberdeen.

Salmond said he had visited China for three times since he became the first minister of Scotland in May 2007 and his recent visit to China was in December 2011.

"And every visit I made to China, I get more and more impressed by the progress China is making for a range of things," Salmond noted.

Cooperation between the two sides "is based on mutual understanding and a long-term relationship," he said. Endi

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