Prime Minister hosts major US investors in New York and says “business is booming”
The Prime Minister will host a business roundtable event in New York today, involving a number of major US investors.
The Prime Minister will say to investors that the UK’s economy is both strong and dynamic, with booming prospects for post-Brexit trade, building on recent inward investment.
The event, entitled, “Investing in Success”, will be held at WeWork, an innovative American collaborative workspace company that has expanded to 26 UK locations since 2014, and which recently announced its intention to double its number of sites in London and open two new sites in Manchester.
Since the vote to leave the European Union on 23 June 2016, we have seen 482 investment projects from the US, with an estimated value of £15.5 billion and creating or safeguarding around 25,000 jobs. And just yesterday the latest EEF Santander survey reported that the UK has moved up a place to become the world’s eighth biggest manufacturing nation.
A number of the companies attending today’s event are expected to make significant new inward investment announcements, including:
- Intrexon, a leading US biotech company, investing £7.3 million to open a new mosquito egg facility in Oxfordshire. The new factory will create 75 new jobs and will be the largest mosquito egg-producing facility in the world, creating a new, safe, non-biting male mosquito designed to reduce the populations of dangerous mosquitoes to help combat deadly diseases like Zika and Dengue
- Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD), a medical technology company, investing £172 million over 4 years to build 8 new manufacturing lines at its site in Roborough, Plymouth, which is estimated to create up to 200 new jobs
The Prime Minister said:
The companies here today are all investors into the UK who have made, or are looking to make, significant additional investments in the future.
And their decisions to do so reflect a confidence in the UK economy that is well-justified. We remain the top destination for Foreign Direct Investment in Europe, and for good reason: the size and stability of our domestic market, our internationally respected legal system including our labour laws, our deep capital markets, and the enormous human talent available in every sector.
But far from resting on our laurels, this government is working hard to make the UK an even more attractive place to invest. We are reducing corporation taxes further over the coming years, and investing in science, technology and infrastructure.
And as we leave the EU, we are seeking to negotiate the deepest and broadest possible trading arrangements with the rest of Europe, to maintain the access into European markets that we know US investors appreciate.
I am confident that British business will continue to go from strength to strength.
Background information:
- Business roundtable attendees:
- Monique Meche, Vice President, Global Public Policy, Amazon
- Vincent A. Forlenza, Chairman and CEO, BD
- Amy Lenander, CEO, Capital One UK
- Rifat Chalabi, Chairman and Co-founder, Chinook Sciences Group
- John G. Rice, Vice Chair, General Electric Company
- Randal J. Kirk, Chairman and CEO, Intrexon
- Robert Pragada, President Buildings & Infrastructure and Industrial, Jacobs Engineering Group
- Stephen Badger, Chairman, Mars, Incorporated
- Kenneth C. Frazier, Chairman and CEO, Merck & Co., Inc.
- Adam Neumann, Co-founder and CEO, WeWork
- Bradley Jacobs, CEO, XPO Logistics