UK signs post-Brexit investment partnership deal with UAE
The UK has signed an investment deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which will see the gulf nation spend an initial £800m in British life sciences.
The UK government will also contribute £200m to life sciences in the deal, bringing the total value of the initial investment to £1bn.
The partnership will include similar investments in other UK industries up until 2026, with the total size of the deal potentially worth up to £5bn.
However, the total value of the agreement has not been disclosed by the UK or UAE.
The deal will be facilitated through Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company – a state-run wealth fund.
Lord Gerry Grimstone, investment minister under trade secretary Liz Truss, told the Financial Times that “we think the future opportunities are very, very sizeable”.
Mubadala chief executive Khaldoon al-Mubarak added: “It will be a sizeable number, appropriate for these sectors in order for us to make the right scale and returns.”
The new deal is the first major agreement to be signed by the UK’s post-Brexit Office for Investment, which was set up by Boris Johnson in November.
Grimstone, who is in charge of closing deals for the Office for Investment, is targeting a similar arrangement with India.
A main focus will also be to secure funding for new green energy projects before the UK co-hosts the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (Cop 26).
“You should see it as a much more muscular and entrepreneurial approach to attracting investment,” Grimstone said.