The UAE will invest £10 billion ($13.8 billion) over the next few years in priority industries in the United Kingdom (UK). 

The funding commitment is part of the agreement signed on Thursday by Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company and the UK Office for Investment (OfI) to expand the UAE-UK Sovereign Investment Partnership (UAE-UK SIP), which was announced in March 2021. 

The announcement was made after His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of UAE, arrived in the UK to meet with British officials, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson. 

The £10 billion capital builds on Mubadala’s £800 million commitment and the UK’s £200 million to UK life sciences when the partnership was established in March.  

According to the statement, the UAE-UK partnership will drive a significant increase in investment across a further three sectors over the next five years: technology, infrastructure and energy, as well as build on the existing programme of life sciences investment. 

“From today, the UAE-UK SIP will become the central investment platform under the new Partnership for the Future bilateral framework, which was also agreed today at a meeting between [Johnson and Al Nahyan],” the statement said. 

Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Mubadala Managing director and group CEO, said the expansion of the partnership “will help accelerate funding and innovation in key sectors that are foundational to economic growth” of the UAE and the UK.  

UAE had already invested £1.1bn in UK companies and funds, including £500m in CityFibre, a telecoms infrastructure group, over the past six months, the Financial Times reported citing Khaldoon Al Mubarak.

(Writing by Cleofe Maceda; editing by Seban Scaria) 

Cleofe.maceda@refinitiv.com

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