LONDON: The UK Government is planning new measures to restrict foreign takeovers of high-tech industries on national security grounds.

Security experts have cautioned the UK Government that it has been late to address the issue.

This comes amid growing concern about the risk of China buying high-tech companies, especially in the economic turmoil resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.

The alarm was raised by the acquisition of British chip design outfit Imagination Technologies, whose tech is used in iPhones.

The company was bought by Canyon Bridge Partners, a private equity outfit based in the Cayman Islands.  But 99 percent of the funds for the purchase came from China Reform, a state-backed Chinese company.

Analysts say the Imagination acquisition was just part of an incremental process where technology has been moved out of the UK and towards China