Maritime terrorism by the al-Qaeda terrorist group, involving attacks on shipping lanes carrying containerised goods from Asia to Britain, is also perceived to pose a significant threat to this country’s economic wellbeing, a report by the London-based Aegis Defence Services says.

The twin threats to Britain’s economy are emphasised in the report, which looks ahead at the potential dangers arising next year. The company which employs hundreds of specialists in regions such as the Middle East and Far East — more than 600 are in Iraq — says that animal rights “terrorists” in the United Kingdom could do as much damage to the economy as a single spectacular terrorist attack.

At stake was an annual investment of up to £16 billion in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology research and development industries, Dominic Armstrong, director of research and intelligence at Aegis and a former City banker, said. Three large companies investing in Britain had already revealed their fears about the persistent intimidation.

“I suppose a terrorist attack in London might cause damage worth £16 billion, but with animal rights extremism we’re talking about potentially losing £16 billion of investment every year,” he said.

The report indicated that animal rights extremism was going to become a growing threat to the British economy over the next 12 months.

“Single-issue terrorism and animal rights extremist terrorist activity in Europe will grow with more ambitious strategic targets . . . and there are fascinating parallels between the economic agenda of al-Qaeda and animal rights extremist networks,” the report says.

It adds: “Short of a radical solution being provided by the UK authorities, companies will have little option but to relocate key functions to less hostile environments, probably in Asia.”

The investment was likely to go to countries such as Singapore which had world-class medical facilities and “is determined to win business contracts”.

“As the UK Government and industry fail to act effectively against ARE (animal rights extremists), so the activists will maintain their momentum in establishing effective offshoots in a number of European countries, especially Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and Russia,” the report says.

As they became more successful, their morale would rise and “they will be tempted to target major multinationals”.

“Share prices will be significantly eroded in those companies in the ARE’s sights, and in the secondary and tertiary targets associated with them,” the report says.

Last week, Huntingdon Life Sciences, the research company under siege from animal rights extremists, lost a key supplier, BOC, which provided bottled gas, until a campaign of harassment and threats forced it to back out. The economic impact of Islamic terrorism is also underlined in the Aegis report.

Mr Armstrong said: “Osama bin Laden (the al-Qaeda leader) has frequently emphasised that his main focus is to damage Western economies. In his last taped message (last month), bin Laden actually referred to lectures at Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs in London) which estimated al-Qaeda had spent $500,000 on the September 11 attacks but the return had been $500 billion in damage to the US economy.”

Mr Armstrong added: “Bin Laden is more interested in making an economic impact than killing people.”

The new dangers to Britain’s economic well-being from al-Qaeda came partly from Britain’s rush to out-source manufacturing to countries in Asia because of the cheaper labour market.

This laid container ships open to attacks in parts of the globe which were a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists, the report says. Among the most vulnerable areas for commercial shipping was the Malacca Strait, the corridor that separates Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra.