The Scottish government insists it is open for business with China, despite a domestic political controversy dubbed the "Scottish shambles" that froze an investment pact with two Chinese companies that was worth 10 billion pounds ($12.4 billion).
Back in March, China's State-owned SinoFortone Group and the China Railway No 3 Engineering Group signed a memorandum of understanding with Scotland's first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, related to investment in clean energy, transport and affordable housing.
Once revealed, the arrangement provoked a backlash from opposition parties that claimed they had not been informed about the "backdoor deal" before the Scottish Parliament was dissolved ahead of elections on May 5.
With Labour and Conservative opponents of Sturgeon's Scottish National Party blasting her government for its handling of the affair, by August, reports said the deal was dead.
However, SinoFortone managing director Peter Zhang told China Daily this week the group has not pulled out of the deal and said no agreement with Edinburgh has been cancelled.
"The deal is actually on hold," Zhang said, citing a slowdown on the Scottish side as the reason.
The Scottish government said it remains open for business and blamed opposition parties for fuelling uncertainty.
"We were aware that Sino-Fortone felt they could not move ahead at that time in the climate of hostility they faced from other parties," it said in a statement to China Daily. "The memorandum of understanding is about building relationships with a view to investment and we remain committed to it."
SinoFortune's Zhang said the Chinese side wanted the Scots to put together an advisory team to focus on the agreement, "but that hasn't happened yet and unfortunately everything has come to a standstill".
"We want to see more commitment from Scotland. We don't want to pull out or cancel the agreement, as we have done a lot of groundwork before we signed the pact. At the moment, SinoFortone has other business to oversee, so the ball is in Scotland's court."
The controversy in Scotland appears to have been further fuelled by local newspaper reports that raised human rights concerns in relation to the agreement. However, one of the Scottish government's critics, Conservative Dean Lockhart, expressed optimism about the future of economic ties with China.
"We need a calm assessment of all this to see if a potentially lucrative deal with China can be reached," Lockhart said at the height of the debate. "These things can't be allowed to fall through because of SNP bungling."
