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Dominic Raab highlights strength of UK manufacturing and innovation as UK-Australia trading relationship goes from strength-to-strength.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab welcomed Cambridge-based company AstraZeneca’s £100m investment into its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Sydney on Friday 7 February. The money will go towards advanced digital technologies that are enhancing the way the company manufactures and delivers medicines to patients.

AstraZeneca supports 38,400 jobs in the UK and has fostered a strong base here thanks to the UK’s attractiveness to businesses and investors. The UK-Australia trade relationship is worth over £17bn, and is set to increase post-Brexit.

On the first major ministerial visit abroad following the UK’s departure from the EU, the Foreign Secretary will set out the guiding principles behind the Government’s Global Britain campaign. Global Britain will be a force for good and an energetic champion of free trade as it pursues closer ties with international partners and embarks on a new role in the world.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab recently said:

I’m delighted to have been able to see first-hand how British talent and innovation have enabled Cambridge-based AstraZeneca to announce £100m investment into its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility that will focus on sustainable healthcare, which will ultimately benefit people around the world.

This is another example of the great opportunities presented by the flourishing UK-Australian trade and business links between our two countries.

Pascal Soriot, Chief Executive Officer of AstraZeneca, recently said:

As an innovative UK-headquartered life sciences company, AstraZeneca is pleased to be making this important investment in Australia in some of the newest and most high-tech medicines manufacturing and production facilities in our global network. This investment will create new skilled jobs, enhance our international outlook and help us to go further for the patients that rely on our medicines around the world.

As part of the visit, the Foreign Secretary planted an indigenous Banksia tree – the first of 25 million trees to be planted in Australia as part of the company’s global initiative “the AZ Forest,” which involves a commitment to plant 50 million trees worldwide.

This reforestation initiative follows the devastation caused by the wildfires that have affected communities and ecosystems across Australia and had a far-reaching impact on the country’s biodiversity.

The Foreign Secretary will also travel to Japan, Singapore and Malaysia on his trip to promote the UK as a dynamic, forward-looking nation and global force for good.

Further information

• Follow the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Twitter @DominicRaab and Facebook
• Follow the Foreign Office on Twitter @foreignoffice and Facebook
• Follow the Foreign Office on Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn

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