More than 4,000 business leaders and politicians are in London for an Olympics investment event and ministers hope that it will generate £1bn of UK deals.

Lancaster House in central London is to be repositioned as the British Business Embassy during the Games, and play host to a series of events to promote British business to global leaders. There will be 17 held in total including a special business summit for China.

A further £4 billion in “high value opportunities” has also been identified by UK trade and Investment (UKTI), including projects linked to the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2016 Rio de Janeiro. UKTI believe that many British businesses will be well placed to share their expertise.

In total, the government hopes the Olympics and legacy projects will add £13bn to the UK economy over the next ten years.

Figures out on Thursday show that although there has been a fall in the number of new projects, inward investment created nearly 53,000 new jobs last year, which was up 26 percent on the previous 12 months.

Prime Minister David Cameron has insisted that all parts of the United Kingdom will get “value for money” from the London Olympics, despite the multi-billion pound cost of staging the Games.

Mr Cameron said that the returns from the Games would come not only in terms of increasing spending, tourism and business opportunities, which he valued at £13 billion, but also in new infrastructure and inspiration for young people to get involved in sport.