Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co. says the new U.K. government should be “given the benefit of the doubt.”
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JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said new governments “always have issues” and U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss should be “given the benefit of the doubt” following a turbulent first month in office.
“It’ll take time to execute the policies and kind of drive growth and what’s important … [but] there’s a lot of things the U.K. has going for it and proper strategies to get it growing faster … then it can accomplish some of the other objectives it wants to accomplish too,” Dimon told CNBC’s Julianna Tatelbaum on Monday, speaking at the JPM Techstars conference in London.
“I would like to see the new prime minister, the new chancellor, be successful,” he said.
Dimon’s comments come after a rocky few weeks for Truss’s administration. Finance Minister Kwasi Kwarteng announced a raft of fiscal measures in a “mini-budget” on Sept. 23, including unfunded cuts to income tax and canceling a planned increase in corporation tax.
Sterling plummeted and yields on U.K. government bonds, or “gilts,” were sent through the roof and have yet to return to their pre-announcement levels.
The government then opted to reverse the decision to abolish the highest income tax bracket — a 45% rate for those earning more than £150,000 — just 10 days later.
‘Every government should be focusing on growth’
Growth should be an objective for every nation, according to JPMorgan’s Dimon.
“I think every government should be focusing on growth — I would love to hear that out of their mouth every time a president or prime minister speaks,” Dimon said.
“Growth comes from proper tax policies, from proper investment policies, consistency of law … being attractive to foreign investment, being attractive to companies and having strategy around industries,” he said.