CSTG  news reports Semiconductor Today comes as the firm achieves a production milestone, manufacturing 2m laser chips since acquiring former Intense Photonics facility in Hamilton in January 2010. CSTG is now set to double annual revenue to £5m in the next three years.

“We have been making considerable headway in the Chinese market for some time and have now reached a key milestone, which underscores the significant investment we’ve made in developing our own proprietary modular process technology platforms,” says CEO Neil Martin.

“Chinese companies are increasingly looking to develop their own operations beyond pure manufacturing. Even though these markets have been traditionally high-volume low-cost, we  achieved considerable success in working  to incorporate custom-built CST laser technologies into their products.”
“Modular technology platforms have allowed us to remain both competitive and agile: CST doesn’t need to go back to the R&D team every time a new requirement comes along,” notes commercial director, Wyn Meredith. “This accelerates time to market for our customers.”


Software smart solutions
Integrated Environmental Solution (IES) makes its strategic breakthrough in the high-growth southeast Asian market, with a supply deal to building consultancy Jurong International of Singapore. and claims the deal puts it on course to double its turnover to £10m within the next two years.

The Strathclyde University spinoff is led by building physicist Don McLean, interviewed  by The Herald designs and markets complex software to monitors environmental performance of buildings, a growth sector as global building standards become more stringent in response to environmental issues.

“The significance of this six-figure deal is not the size, but its place in the strategic plan,”  says McLean. “Teaming up with a local company in Singapore, being perceived as market leaders, helps make us the main builder of compliance tools for Singapore, gives us an opportunity to control the market as premier supplier of product. Other countries in that territory, such as Thailand and Indonesia, will then follow.”

In the last two years the firm has dramatically increased its exports from 20% of total turnover to 65%. McLean said that while the firm did less than 5% of its business in Scotland, he continues to be based in Glasgow.

“We’re extremely nationalistic. I trade a lot on the Scottish reputation for being innovative and creative: we play the Scottish card and it works for us very well internationally.”

Finance follows trade
Owen Kelly, former civil servant and a graduate in Chinese from Edinburgh University, is reported by The Herald as saying the China visit “Is the next step in a dialogue with the city of Tianjin.

"The British Council is facilitating the visit. Their mission is to promote UK education, and our mission is to promote Scotland as a financial centre with high standards of financial education.

“We began to speak to Tianjin when they were designated by the Chinese government as a special economic zone.

"They built a brand new city and are now in the business of populating it with the people with the skills necessary to make it a financial services hub for that part of Asia.

“We will be explaining that while Scotland is a small country, it has a full range of financial services industries and has pioneered effective collaborations with our universities, such as the Scottish Financial Risk Academy, in which all universities are involved.”