The British government has realized that its current approach to attracting foreign capital is too slow and fragmented; therefore, it is granting greater authority to its investment office to provide a concierge service for major international investors.
The foreign direct investment (FDI) review’s recommendations, according to Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt, will be accepted. Investors had expressed dissatisfaction with sudden changes to policies like corporation tax and net zero plans, which they said were delaying their investments.
Investors have requested assistance in negotiating challenges including several government agencies and incentive programs, as well as labor shortages and delays in planning that can make the work more difficult.
The review’s author, Richard Harrington, claimed that other governments “have a much slicker, centralized, organized system for dealing with investors than we do” and that they had improved their strategies for drawing in capital.
“The idea of the concierge service, beefed up, is that these investors would have an account manager who would deal with all the different aspects of government for them,” he stated to reporters.
Although the UK continues to do well on headline FDI figures, Harrington’s study concluded that “the UK needs to do more in an increasingly competitive environment for investment.”
According to the evaluation, the Office for Investment “lacked teeth” and didn’t offer a “substantive offering compared to international competitors,” thus it should be given more authority to provide a comprehensive concierge service.
In addition, it stated that by spring 2024, the government should have a business investment strategy in place to be managed by a cross-government Investment Committee, and that the minister of investments should be granted more seniority to enable him or her to work across the government.
“To truly move this along, I would want to see a meeting of the Investment Committee by January of next year. And the Chancellor (Hunt) has promised me that will be the case,” continued Harrington, a member of parliament’s upper house.
During his Autumn Statement budget update, which focuses on steps to fire up Britain’s sluggish economy, Hunt stated he agreed with every major proposal made by the review.
“In particular, we will put in place a concierge service for large international investors modeled on the best such services offered by our competitors and will increase funding for the Office for Investment to deliver it,” Hunt stated.
