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New UK budget includes tax cuts for video game industry and money for 'super-connected cities'

New UK budget includes tax cuts for video game industry and money for 'super-connected cities'

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UK Chancellor George Osbourne delivered the 2012 budget today, and in it are a number of provisions that are focused on making the UK "Europe's technological center."

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HM Treasury
HM Treasury

UK Chancellor George Osborne delivered the 2012 budget today, and in it are a number of provisions that are focused on making the UK "Europe's technological center." To support that ambition, the budget named 10 cities to benefit from a £100 million investment to deliver "ultrafast broadband coverage" to 1.7 million households and 200,000 businesses by 2015. There's also a provision included for £50 million to fund 10 smaller "super-connected" cities which have yet to be named. In addition to the planned broadband improvements, the new budget also calls for extending mobile coverage to 60,000 more homes and along at least 10 "key" roads by 2015; the government will be using a £150 million investment that was announced in the 2011 Autumn statement.

There are also some tax cuts in the new budget to help stimulate the economy surrounding high-tech jobs — specifically the video game, high-end television, and animation sectors. Specific details for these tax breaks haven't been released yet, as they aren't scheduled to go into effect until April 2013. According to The Guardian, the UK employs approximately 9,000 people working across 300 different studios, but jobs have been moving away from the UK to places like Canada thanks to tax incentives. The BBC notes that the gaming industry has been lobbying for these changes for years now, with a spokesperson for Tiga (a trade association representing the UK's gaming industry) saying that "this victory will benefit not just the UK games development and digital publishing sector, but also the wider UK economy."