U.K. Trade Secretary Denies Uncertainty Will Hit Tech Investment
U.K. Trade Secretary Denies Uncertainty Will Hit Tech Investment
(Bloomberg) -- U.K. Trade Secretary Liam Fox dismissed fears that foreign companies will slow down their investment in domestic technology businesses, despite the ongoing uncertainty around the country’s exit from Europe.
"If you take the legal system, skills of the workforce, the regulatory and tax systems, linguistic skills, access to tech, and IP law, not one of those is affected to any degree by Brexit," said Fox in an interview. "London hasn’t been the center of the fintech revolution because of anything government’s done. It’s because we have all the necessary prerequisites for that available here."
Fox was speaking at sidelines of the launch of Japanese tech firm NTT Data Corp.’s 68 million-pound ($86 million) lab in London. NTT will hire hundreds of new workers in the U.K., it said in a statement.
U.K. politicians have been dismissing concerns that tech companies will flee the country when it exits the European Union.
"I don’t believe tech companies will fly to Europe," U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond said earlier this month at a Bloomberg event in London.
Technology startups in London attracted a record 2.56 billion pounds ($3.26 billion) of venture capital investment in 2019 through May 31, according to data published this month by London & Partners, the city’s official lobbying arm. U.K. fintech companies also continued to lead Europe in terms of funding, taking in $645 million in the first quarter, according to a recent report from CB Insights.
The optimism from Hammond and Fox contrasts with the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, who warned last week that Brexit has resulted in the government ignoring the potential impact of technological changes such as artificial intelligence.
The U.K. is also currently in ongoing preliminary negotiations for a trade deal with Japan, on whether they want to roll over their agreements with the EU to the U.K. after Brexit. Fox said that both countries "agreed that we want to have a new trade agreement based on the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement."
Amid an increasingly rowdy battle over the leadership of the Conservative party, Fox said he would be "happy with either candidate" leading the Tories -- Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt, the two hopefuls.
"Naturally I’m supporting Jeremy Hunt but I think that we saw a wide breadth of talent in the leadership contest," Fox said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Giles Turner in London at gturner35@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net, Nate Lanxon, Emma Ross-Thomas
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