Sir James Dyson says businesses would be 'mad to withhold investment plans' post Brexit vote

Sir James Dyson, one of the most prominent campaigners to back Britain's exit from the European Union, has said that he is upbeat about the referendum results. The billionaire founder of British technology firm Dyson expressed his views while unveiling the £250m ($330m) expansion plans of his company's R&D facility in Wiltshire, South West England.

Dyson said that there was no reason for businesses in the UK to be uncertain about the Brexit vote and added, businesses would be mad to withhold investment plans because of the referendum results.

Insisting that a Brexit was positive for the UK's future, the inventor pointed out that there were many advantages for the country now. He explained that the UK could negotiate trade agreements with other countries much more easily and flexibly going further.

He also said the decision to leave the EU would help the UK address its shortage of engineers – a factor which had curbed the expansion plans of his own company. Now, companies in the UK will be able to attract more engineers and scientists from India, China and the Far East, by making the UK's immigration system global.

Speaking about the prospects of import duties on trade between the EU and the UK, Dyson said it would be suicidal for the EU to introduce tariffs on UK goods. He stressed that this was because the UK's imports from the EU exceeded its exports by £100bn.

"Are you seriously saying that Germany wants to be putting an import duty on British goods going into Germany when we can punish them much greater on their goods?" Dyson asked, according to the Guardian.

His company's expansion plans also prove how confident he is about the country's future post the Brexit vote. The expansion includes the opening of a new research building, nicknamed D9, which will house up to 450 engineers, who will work on secret projects in the space of robotics and battery technology. The expansion is said to be part of an effort to create 3,000 new jobs by 2020.

Further, Dyson said that a dearth of engineering skills in the UK was restricting his company from expanding faster. "We are now 2,500 people here on this site....We want to expand here - the problem is there aren't enough engineers. If we could double the number of engineers tomorrow, we would do it. But we can't - so we have to grow slowly - much more slowly than we would like to," he was quoted as saying by the BBC.

The company has doubled its revenues in the past four years and has set-up 129 laboratories for its R&D team. The Malmesbury-headquartered company which sells products such as hair dryers, bladeless fans, air purifiers and robotic vacuum cleaners is believed to be currently working on more than 200 projects.