A survey of global bosses shows that Britain is a “more attractive investment proposition for multinational companies than it was before Brexit”.
The UK has overtaken India as the world’s fourth most promising growth opportunity, according to PwC’s annual CEO Survey of 5,000 business leaders worldwide reported in the Times. America, China and Germany remained the top three.
Over a tenth (11%) of bosses chose the UK in their top three for target markets, up from 9% in autumn 2019 when the survey was last conducted.
Stable choice
Writing in the Times Kevin Ellis, chairman of PwC UK, said that the completion of Brexit had ended a lot of “political uncertainty” and provided stability for business which increased the UK’s pull.
Chinese executives were particularly interested in Britain, with 13% putting it in their top three investment targets, up from 3% in 2019. A quarter of India’s bosses put the UK in the top three, up from 9.5%.
Going Dutch
Separately, Amsterdam has emerged as the main destination for UK businesses wanting to have a base in the EU.
“In the race to scoop up business leaving London it is Amsterdam, and not larger banking centres such as Frankfurt and Paris, that has shone,” the FT reports.
Amsterdam has benefited most from share trading leaving the City of London. The Dutch financial capital has also taken more than 20% of the euro swaps market and more than $160bn on the sovereign debt trading markets.
In June, trading of Europe’s €1bn-a-day flagship carbon emissions market also relocates to Amsterdam.
However, attracting high flying bankers from London may prove difficult as the Netherlands has Europe’s strictest bank bonus cap of 20% of total salary.
Warehouse solutions
As reported in Export.org, the Netherlands has become a popular location for British companies looking to offshore some of their activities to circumvent post-transition border friction.
Logistics and warehousing companies said they were being “inundated” with requests from British businesses looking to use warehousing to benefit from suspension of import taxes or in the case of re-exports, actual tax savings.
In a poll by the IOE&IT – surveyed during a capacity-attended webinar on Rules of Origin on 5 January – more than one fifth of companies said they were interested in exploring customs warehousing in the future.
