The earnings of the United Kingdom’s collective quarrying and mining sector have been boosted after billions of dollars in investments were pulled from the European Union following the Brexit vote.
Figures released by the British Office for National Statistics show that total investment earnings in mining and aggregates have spiked from a negative £91 million ($AUD36.8 million) in 2015, to more than £2 billion ($AUD3.9 billion) in 2018.
“The quarrying and mining sector’s earnings have gone from being £91 million in the red, to a whopping £2 billion in the black since the Brexit vote,” Catax’s chief executive of R&D tax reliefs Mark Tighe said.
Catax is a British-based expert company in specialist areas of tax relief, including capital allowances, research and development, contaminated land remediation, and patents.
Tighe believes the bigger earnings have grown from UK quarrying and mining companies holding back on European Union (EU) investments.
Investments from the UK quarrying and mining sector more than halved from £34.4 billion ($AUD66.6 billion) in 2015 to £16 billion ($AUD30.9 billion) in 2018.
“For the past few years we’ve heard horror stories about what would happen to the UK following the vote to leave the EU,” Tighe said. “The quarrying and mining industry has clearly made some hard decisions about the future, with investment positions being wound down on both sides of the Channel.
“But for UK firms these sensible decisions have clearly paid off, with mining and quarrying firms enjoying a boom in earnings, emerging this side of Brexit in stronger position.”
The earnings increase is expected to give the country a strong start after its exit from the EU.
“This is more good news for British industry as the country starts to set its own course on the journey to become a new outward-looking nation outside the EU,” Tighe said.