The Labor government is welcoming dozens of business leaders to London on Monday for an “international investment summit”, the first major gathering of its kind since coming to power, where it hopes to increase the number of announcements despite laborious organization and a “guest list” skinny.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who intends to make the United Kingdom “the best place in the world for business”, is banking on this summit to restore flagging popularity (24% favorable opinions) three months after his arrival at Downing Street .
Labor also sees it as an opportunity to strengthen its ties with businesses, after 14 years of conservative governments and a resounding exit from the European Union.
Keir Starmer is expected to loudly announce billions in investment for the country on Monday, then extol the merits of his “pro-business” policy.
As an appetizer, the government has already revealed 24 billion pounds (28.6 billion euros) in low-carbon energy, including 12 billion from the Spanish giant Iberdrola and 8 billion from the Dane Orsted, mainly already known projects.
“Out of office”
The Prime Minister intends to give of himself for his summit: it is he who must open the ball with a dialogue with Eric Schmidt, a former CEO of Google, today extremely wealthy but no longer at the helm of the group since 2011.
Because three days before the summit, the headliners are missing: no big foreign boss, no “tech” bigwig, no American star for the moment, but many local players and a few representatives of multinationals, like the investment director of Google.
Even the opportunity to meet King Charles III in person at the closing reception scheduled for Monday evening was not enough to convince them.
In a vitriolic article on Friday, the Financial Times explains this lukewarmness by an organization considered laborious, which leads guests to reserve their participation until the last minute this weekend.
Two foreign companies seeking urgent information were surprised to receive the only response from the organizers an “out of office” message, according to the daily.
Another sign of this mess, the very secret list of guests was revealed by mistake, the organizers having sent an email to all the confirmed hosts, without hiding the addresses, including that of LVMH boss Bernard Arnault, according to the British press.
Error
“This is a human administrative error and we apologize to those affected,” responded a spokesperson for the Ministry of Enterprise in a statement sent to AFP.
There were also doubts about the participation of the port operator DP World, based in Dubai. Media reports even announced that its president had abandoned a billion-pound investment planned for the summit due to a dispute with the government.
The Minister of Transport this week criticized P&0 Ferries (owned by DP World) for abruptly laying off 800 employees in 2022.
But according to the Ministry of Commerce, DP World will be present. Its president, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, will attend the conference, the Times said.
One hundred days
The guests seem cooled by the date of the summit, which responds to the government’s promise to organize the event before its hundredth day in business, but also falls two weeks before the first Labor budget, which worries businesses because of a rise in taxes on capital income seems to be emerging.
“Taxing shareholders more on gains (…) is hardly likely to encourage participation in the stock market,” euphemizes Susannah Streeter, analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, interviewed by AFP.
The final figure at these investment summits is most often calculated by adding together already known amounts, a few new commitments and sometimes a sensational announcement.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced 29.5 billion pounds (35.2 billion euros) last year.
