Prime Minister welcomes £70 million Israeli investment in UK following visit
David Cameron has welcomed more than £70 million of investment into the UK following his visit to Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
Prime Minister David Cameron has welcomed more than £70 million of investment into the UK following his visit with Trade and Investment Minister Lord Livingston to Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
The investment, which will create hundreds of UK jobs, included:
- a £50 million commitment by Israel’s Noy Infrastructure and Energy Investment Fund to the UK’s renewable energy sector
- a £12 million investment by Israeli pharma company Teva in clinical development in the UK and a pledge of an additional £600,000 to support research into dementia, re-affirming support to the Prime Minister’s Dementia Challenge
- a £10 million investment by Israel-based AposTherapy in the UK in the next 3 years, creating hundreds of UK jobs
A 17-strong business delegation joined David Cameron and Trade and Investment Minister, Lord Livingston, to explore the increasing opportunities in information and communication technology, healthcare, energy and security sectors.
Lord Livingston said:
These announcements are testament to how the UK and Israel work successfully together. UK exports have grown steadily and we are now the third largest exporter to Israel and there are now over 250 Israeli companies operating in the UK.
There is huge potential to increase trade and investment with Israel and the Palestinian Territories. I look forward to building on this success with the work of UKTI.
On Thursday (13 March 2014) Lord Livingston joined the Prime Minister and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Teva to discuss future collaboration with Israel and the opportunities for both UK and Israeli companies especially in innovation and technology.
Lord Livingston then went on to East Jerusalem to meet the Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Dr. Mohammed Mustafa and the East Jerusalem-based Office of the Quartet Representative to discuss the Initiative for the Palestinian Economy (IPE) on how to encourage Palestinian economic growth.The Prime Minister also set out further UK support to create business opportunities and jobs in the Palestinian territories.
Notes to Editors:
1.Announcements from the trip include:
- AposTherapy which has brought innovative, non-invasive and highly effective treatment to knee osteoarthritis, has recently opened a branch in Edinburgh, and intends to open branches in Bristol and the North East over the next 2 years. It has already created 50 jobs in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Kent and Sussex; with the assistance and support of UKTI Israel, as part of its growth plan, AposTherapy intends to set up its European headquarters in the UK
- Israel-based Matomy Media Group, had announced their intention to float on the London Stock Exchange
- The British Council and Israeli government have also pledged a cash injection of £1 million to help expand the British and Israeli Research and Academic Exchange Programme into new areas of research as part of the Regenerative Medicine Programme
- The Technology Strategy Board announced they will commit up to £5 million to work with MATIMOP (Israeli Industry Centre for research and development) to support innovative UK and Israeli businesses working together on research and development projects over the next 5 years; this will be focused on the commercialisation of research in a range of key areas, such as agri tech, water tech, medical devices, digital and cyber security
- UKTI will also lead a roll out of the UK Tech Hub model, which was established in Israel, in select markets around the world as an innovative means of partnering British companies with the best R&D and Tech in key markets
- The British Council with the Portland Trust will bring young Palestinian entrepreneurs and business people to the UK for short placements in leading companies during the coming year
- Unilever has selected Tel Aviv as the first location of a global network of Open Innovation Ports, providing a stream of cutting-edge new ideas, products and solutions back into Unilever
2.Companies that made announcements are:
- Noy Infrastructure and Energy Investment fund – An Israeli infrastructure and energy investment fund, established in May 2011 to address the growing equity needs of the infrastructure sector. The fund is focused on generating sustainable cash flow and long term capital gains from investments in infrastructure and energy projects, principally in Israel. The fund’s management team currently manages over US$550 million raised from a wide investor base which includes many of Israel’s largest institutional investors
- Teva – A pharmaceutical company established in 1901 that ranks in the10 top pharmaceutical companies in the world. Headquartered in Israel, Teva is active in 60 countries, with over 46,400 dedicated employees worldwide
- AposTherapy – AposTherapy was developed by 2 doctors who come from the fields of orthopaedics and sports medicine. The development of the treatment began in response to the growing evidence and better understanding of biomechanics and the central role that the neuromuscular system plays in the development and the rehabilitation of orthopedic conditions. In 2004, the company was incorporated and the first flagship centre was opened in Herzliya, Israel. Nine years later, with over 50,000 patients treated worldwide, AposTherapy now has 11 centres available in four countries (US, UK, Israel and Singapore)
- Matomy Media Group – A global performance marketing company with 380 employees worldwide
- MATIMOP – The executive agency of the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS), of the Ministry of Economy of Israel, it is the official National Agency for industrial research and development cooperation in Israel, charged with promoting highly supportive policies to build Israel’s industrial infrastructure, and nurturing industrial innovation and entrepreneurship. It generates and implements international cooperative industrial R&D programs between Israeli and foreign enterprises
- The Portland Trust – A British non-profit ‘action tank’ with offices in London, Ramallah and Tel Aviv. It was established in 2003 to promote peace and stability between Palestinians and Israelis through economic development
- Unilever – Unilever is 1 of the world’s leading suppliers of fast moving consumer goods with operations in over 100 countries and sales in 190. Consumers buy 170 billion Unilever packs around the world every year, and their products are used over 2 billion times a day. They have more than 171,000 employees, and generated annual sales of €46.5 billion in 2011
3.UK Trade and Investment: UKTI is the government department that helps UK-based companies succeed in the global economy. We also help overseas companies bring their high quality investment to the UK’s economy – acknowledged as Europe’s best place from which to succeed in global business. UKTI offers expertise and contacts through its extensive network of specialists in the UK, and in British embassies and other diplomatic offices around the world. We provide companies with the tools they require to be competitive on the world stage. For more information on UKTI, visit www.ukti.gov.uk or visit the online newsroom at www.ukti.gov.uk/media.
4.In the 2012 Autumn Statement, UKTI was awarded an additional £70 million for each of 2013 to 2014 and 2014 to 2015, enabling the recruitment of more international trade advisers around the country, expansion of existing services including the Trade Access Programme (TAP) and the Overseas Market Introduction Service (OMIS), and support to expand the range of assistance available to UK companies through overseas British chambers of commerce.
The government’s Industrial Strategy provides businesses, investors and the public with more clarity about the long-term direction in which the government wants the economy to travel.
5.The government’s economic policy objective is to achieve ‘strong, sustainable and balanced growth that is more evenly shared across the country and between industries’. It set 4 ambitions in the ‘Plan for Growth’, published at Budget 2011:
- to create the most competitive tax system in the G20
- to make the UK the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a business
- to encourage investment and exports as a route to a more balanced economy
- to create a more educated workforce that is the most flexible in Europe
Work is underway across government to achieve these ambitions, including progress on more than 250 measures as part of the Growth Review. Developing an Industrial Strategy gives new impetus to this work by providing businesses, investors and the public with more clarity about the long-term direction in which the government wants the economy to travel.