It’s fantastic to be here in Glasgow today.

The athletes are arriving, the venues are ready, the crowds are gearing up and we’re looking forward to a fantastic Commonwealth Games.

For us, the legacy of these Games won’t just be measured in medals won or records broken – though of course those things are great.

It will be measured in young lives inspired, Glasgow promoted to the world – and yes, in deals done, contracts won, businesses boosted and jobs created.

Remember: at London 2012 we didn’t just win 65 medals, we switched the world back on to London and the UK – and won £14 billion for the economy, in sales, investments and contracts.

That’s the British way: going for gold in all its forms.

And that’s what these Games are about, too: showing the UK off to the world.

Now I’ve been accused of being a salesman before; frankly I take that as a compliment not an insult.

I see it as a big part of my job to sell the UK: to bang the drum for our businesses, and that’s what I’m here to do today.

So I want to set out the 3 big commitments we have made to make Britain such a good place to invest, to partner with and to do business with.

So commitment 1: making Britain the world’s most open and welcoming economy.

This country is the largest destination for foreign direct investment in Europe. That didn’t just happen by accident.

Investors didn’t just close their eyes a stick a pin in a map.

They opened their eyes and saw an open, welcoming economy with a corporation tax which – at 21% – is set to be the lowest in the G7, a Patent Box that slashes taxes for those developing new products and making them here and a generous tax relief for research and development.

They saw historic levels of investment in infrastructure, too.

Right here in Scotland we’ve got a £1 billion city deal for Glasgow, a £230 million loan guarantee for Grangemouth and £100 million investment to extend rural broadband from Eyemouth to Stromness.

This is taking place right across the UK. We’ve got the biggest construction project in Europe going on under London in Crossrail. We’ve given the green light to a new high-speed north-south rail line and we’ve got superfast broadband spreading all over our country.

And when you add all this to the UK’s other advantages: our time zone, the fact that we speak the world’s global language, that we have some of the best universities in the world – not least Glasgow, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Stirling – that we have Scotland’s wind and waves, its oil and gas and its creativity and innovation then you have a truly enticing prospect for any international investor.

That’s why we’ve seen foreign direct investment going up and up.

It’s why we saw a record-breaking 1,773 projects funded by foreign investors last year like the Swedish company Vattenfall building wind farms in Wales, like Australia’s Wolf Minerals investing in metal exploration in Devon and like Belgian payments firm Clear2pay expanding its base here in Scotland.

Indeed, foreign investment in UK assets is now 63% of our GDP with Malaysia helping to rebuild our cities, India investing in our cars and Dubai working on our ports.

Look at the North Sea and it’s not just the UK investing in our oil and gas industry – it’s Norway and the UAE.

Look at Silicon Glen and it’s not just Britain funding the latest technology – it’s America and Switzerland.

Look at the Moray Firth, and it’s not just local companies ploughing money into offshore wind – it’s Japan and Spain.

Today foreign investment in the UK is at its highest level since records began.

But that’s not a reason to rest on our laurels – it’s a reason to go even further.

And we are – the investment keeps rolling in with CGI almost doubling its Glasgow workforce, Kaiam Corporation building a new production facility in Livingston and SAS, Wipro and Clough all expanding and creating more jobs right here in the UK.

And talking of investment, I’m delighted that Flybe has today announced that it is investing in a new route launching daily flights from Aberdeen to London City later this year and keeping connected the thriving economy of north-east Scotland.

Commitment 2 has been to promote trade and industry around the world.

When I came into government I walked over to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and I said ‘your job description is changing’.

To our diplomats I said ‘you’re not just ambassadors for the UK – you’re ambassadors for UK PLC’.

To our ministers I said ‘you’re not just representing UK government – you’re representing UK business’.

Where British foreign policy was in retreat, it is now on the advance.

Where trade was seen as secondary, it is now at the heart of our diplomacy.

Where Britain was focusing on its continental neighbours rather than its Commonwealth friends, exports to non-EU countries have increased by nearly 19%.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been a big part of connecting us with the fastest growing parts of the world – and yes, that includes the Commonwealth.

We’ve increased our diplomatic presence in India – now bigger than any other country’s, including America – and only this month we announced a new deputy high commission in Ahmedabad.

We’ve expanded our reach in Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, Mongolia, Nigeria and more.

I’ve taken trade delegations around the world, from Brazil to Malaysia, with business people from around the UK, including Aggreko and Standard Life from here in Scotland.

And with UKTI we’ve been running a totally unprecedented campaign – the GREAT campaign – emblazoning the Union flag from the skyscrapers of Dubai to the tuk tuks of Cambodia and telling people that Great Britain is a great place to do business.

And all this is working. Our exports to China are up by 115%, to India by 55%.

It is a golden era for UK exports, driven by our luxury brands.

To give you just one example from here in Scotland – Scotch whisky is selling at record levels from America to China to Russia to the Gulf. In fact sales are now worth £135 a second to the UK balance of trade.

The prizes for businesses in Scotland and across the UK are incredible.

That’s why I’ll keep on flying the flag for Britain every chance I can.

And commitment 3: backing the UK’s strengths.

My industrial policy is clear. I don’t believe in picking winners, but I do believe in backing them.

Wherever the UK has a strength, we will build on it.

Wherever we have an advantage, we will use it.

You only have to look around Scotland to see some of the big strengths we have in this country.

There’s Clyde Space, where they’ve launched one of the smallest satellites to go into space.

Up in the Rosyth shipyard there’s the largest aircraft carrier in history, HMS Queen Elizabeth.

In Edinburgh the city’s getting a name as a global hub for tech start-ups.

In Aberdeen they’re taking the expertise, won through years of deep sea exploration, and applying it to creating the newest sources of green energy.

One of the UK’s greatest strengths is financial services.

It’s a Scottish strength, too, supporting 200,000 jobs here.

And there is an inextricable link between the success of the City of London and the globally renowned financial centres of Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee and Glasgow.

We as a government don’t just see these industries and think ‘fantastic, let the tax revenue roll in’.

We are an unashamedly activist government.

And to back Scotland’s biggest success stories we’re doing everything we can – removing the barriers to selling Scottish whisky around the world, giving decommissioning relief to the oil industry and reducing taxes for the film and gaming industries.

That is our commitment: to take the giants of British industry and make them greater still.

I’d like to end by saying this.

The Commonwealth has a great history of trade.

We are, after all, a common wealth, not just united by history, culture and values but by trade and prosperity.

And the UK – with Scotland at its heart – has a great history of trade, too.

This is the country of great inventors like Alexander Graham Bell, who made the telephone and exported it to the world.

It’s the country of great thinkers like Adam Smith, who paved the way for modern industrial economies and of textile merchants like Alexander Chalmers, whose trading relationship with Poland was so close that he ended up living there and becoming Mayor of Warsaw.

And together – we can have a great future, too.

We are committed to achieving that, by creating that open, welcoming economy by promoting that trade and industry around the world and by getting full square behind our great UK industries so we can make them even greater.

All we need you to do is to come here, and to invest.

So welcome to Scotland – and enjoy the Games.