Panasonic to move its European headquarters out of UK

Japanese technology company Panasonic will move its European headquarters outside of the United Kingdom on October 1, before the country leaves the European Union, a move known as brexit, in 2019, a spokeswoman for the conglomerate said on Friday.

Panasonic confirmed to Efe that it will move its European headquarters from Bracknell, in Berkshire County, about 45 km west of London, to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where the headquarters of Panasonic Holding Netherlands (parent of its subsidiaries located outside Japan) and Panasonic Finance (PFI), the group's financing company, are already located.

The move "will allow a high level of cooperation and collaboration with PHN and PFI, whose main objective is to expand shared operations in Europe to achieve greater efficiency and cost competitiveness, while having easy access to the different European markets", spokeswoman said.

The company also took into account the decision of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union in determining the relocation.

"In the future, this may lead to changes in the transfer of labor, products, materials, services, data and potential tax obstacles through the application of different rules and regulations between the UK and the EU," she said.

Panasonic would also like to avoid the problems that could arise if the Japanese government were to consider the United Kingdom as a tax haven if it opts to reduce corporate taxes in order to attract companies after the brexit, planned for March next year, to alleviate the flight of large conglomerates.

The Japanese technology conglomerate said it hopes to "minimise the impact wherever possible for the small number of people involved in this change of our regional headquarters" and stated that "no business operations in the UK will be affected".--IANS

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