Unilever, the consumer goods group behind Persil and Magnum ice-creams, has said it will not scale back its UK operations if Britain votes to leave the EU.

The comments from Paul Polman, the chief executive of the Anglo-Dutch business, echo those of Akio Toyoda, his counterpart at Toyota, who said the Japanese carmaker would continue to produce cars in Derbyshire even if Britain left.

In an interview with the Guardian, Polman said Britain should remain in the EU, but that Unilever’s UK sites, including three research and development centres, would not be affected by a vote to leave. “The effectiveness of my research centre is the quality of the people I have there and the ideas coming out in terms of the innovations that we produce. We don’t make a decision on moving research centres around depending on if you are in the EU or not,” he said.

His comments will be a relief to Unilever’s 7,500 staff in the UK, but will also give hope to campaigners pushing for Britain to quit the EU, who argue that Brexit would not damage the country’s economic prospects or lead to significant job losses.

British-based businesses are drawing up battle lines over a referendum, with US investment banks and the retail grandee Sir Stuart Rose among those backing the campaign to stay in the EU, while the hedge fund owner Crispin Odey and the Phones4U founder, John Caudwell, are backing Brexit.

Polman added that the R&D Unilever carries out, including £80m a year invested in research and education by the Leverhulme Trust, underlined the company’s importance to the UK. It employs more than 170,000 globally and has a stock market value of £88bn. In the UK it operates from 18 sites, including seven factories.

“Unilever is in 190 countries in the world,” said Polman, a Dutch citizen. “I am in every country basically, in any trading zone, in the EU, out of the EU. People need to buy shampoo, people need to eat their Knorr or Cup-a-Soup, and they want to buy their Coleman’s and they want to buy their Magnum ice-cream. They are not going to say that is function of if I am in the EU or if I am not in the EU.

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