City of London skyline on June 10, 2024 in London, England. The City of London is a city, ceremonial shire and local government area containing London’s main central business district (CBD).
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Britain needs an extra £1 trillion ($1.3 trillion) of investment over the next decade to grow its economy, a report said on Friday.
New British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he wanted the economy to grow at an annual rate of 2.5% during his campaign ahead of the July 4 election – a pace the UK has not regularly achieved since the 2008 financial crisis. .
A report by the Capital Markets Industry Working Group, a British financial services lobby group, said that a growth rate of 3% per year over the next 10 years would require an additional investment of 100 billion pounds, especially in energy, housing and venture capital.
The report’s lead author and former Legal & General boss Nigel Wilson told Reuters the investment could come from £6tn of long-term capital from the UK pensions and insurance industry.
“We have long underinvested in the UK and there is a huge gap between the other G7 countries and us,” he said.
“We have long-term capital in the UK that needs to be reallocated.”
The report says the UK economy needs an additional £50 billion a year in energy investment to meet the net zero target, £30 billion in housing investment and £20-30 billion in venture capital.
The report added that the government should consider investment incentives such as reducing stock taxes for retail investors.
A separate report released on Friday by think tank New Finance showed UK pensions have “significantly lower” allocations to domestic and unlisted equities compared with most developed market pension systems around the world.
UK pension allocations could double and remain in line with the pension industry in other developed markets, the report said.
The British government has called for a review of the British pension system and seeks to increase British pension investment in domestic new companies.
