London, Tokyo agree on £18bil investment deal

LONDON: Britain and Japan on Sunday sealed a sweeping economic and technological partnership, expected to generate over £18 billion in investment, during a visit to London by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Takaichi held talks at his Downing Street office, ahead of them attending a G7 summit in France which begins on Monday.

In total, more than 10 trade agreements were signed, including a £9-billion offshore wind farm project, as Starmer hailed as “a new era of cooperation between our two countries”.

The meeting also included a roundtable discussion with industry representatives from both nations.

The partnership includes a  strengthening of collaboration between Rolls-Royce and Japan’s Atomic Energy Agency.

The two countries also announced their intention to launch the UK-Japan Frontier Tech Partnership (FTP), a technology partnership aimed at seeing British research translated into scalable technology with Japanese investment in areas including AI and semiconductors.

A formal production agreement will link the British Semiconductor Centre to the newly founded Japanese chipmaker Rapidus.

On the defence front, the two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), which aims to develop a supersonic next-generation fighter jet and which Starmer said was at the heart of the bilateral relationship.

The GCAP is an international military programme launched in 2022 by Britain, Italy and Japan which aims to develop a next-generation warplane by 2035, replacing the Eurofighter Typhoon.

Total trade between the United Kingdom and Japan is currently worth around £140 billion, according to the UK government.