Japan PM Warns Brexit Will Deter Investors

Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe has warned that leaving the EU would make the UK less attractive for its companies to invest.

The intervention, during a Downing Street news conference alongside David Cameron, follows a warning on Brexit from US president Barack Obama.

Mr Abe, who leads the world's third largest economy, said Japanese firms viewed the UK as a "gateway" to Europe.

He said: "A vote to leave would make the UK less attractive as a destination for Japanese investment.

"Japan very clearly would prefer Britain to remain within the EU."

Mr Abe said about 1,000 Japanese companies operate in the UK employing 140,000 people.

Mr Cameron said Japan had investments worth a total of £38bn in Britain and that inward investment in the UK from Japan was worth more than that from any other country except the US.

It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) had played a particularly important role in reviving Britain's car industry, with Nissan's plant at Sunderland the biggest car plant in the UK.

Japan's intervention comes less than two weeks after Mr Obama bluntly warned that the UK would be "in the back of the queue" for a trade deal with the US if it were to leave the EU.

Boris Johnson, the pro-Brexit London mayor, has accused the Government of "ringing round every other friendly government saying 'we are in a bit of a spot, can you say something positive about the EU?'."

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Vote Leave camapign, said: "Japan wouldn’t accept the huge loss of control Britain has suffered because of our EU membership, so much of the public will be sceptical of the Japanese Prime Minister's 'do as I say, not as we do' attitude.

"Japanese bosses argued that we would be diminished if we didn't join the euro so similar warnings about the referendum further lack credibility."