Guernsey 15th in world’s top 75
Wednesday 30th September 2009, 2:32PM BST.
GUERNSEY’S 15th place on a competitive list of 75 global financial centres reflects its OECD white list status and ensures a flow of business, it has been claimed.
The Global Financial Centres Index, released by the City of London this week, named the island the second highest scoring offshore jurisdiction after Jersey, which moved one place ahead.
In March, Guernsey was 12th.
GuernseyFinance chief executive Peter Niven (pictured) said the island was in good company and should not fret about Jersey overtaking.
‘There are only four points between Guernsey and Jersey,’ he said.
‘I don’t think we should get hung up. Next time we may be slightly in front and as long as we are at the top I am happy.’
And Guernsey had remained in the top bracket of offshore finance centres, he said.
‘We – Guernsey and Jersey – are at the top when it comes to smaller international finance centres, above the likes of the Isle of Man, the Cayman Islands and the Caribbean.’
It also finished well ahead of onshore jurisdictions including Luxembourg and Dublin.
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This is the sort of message we need to get out to the world if we want to maintain our income flow. I feel sorry for Guernsey Finance who do a great job accentuating the positive news which keeps business flowing in and ultimately helps to pay for waste plants, runway repairs, schools and hospitals when the Guernsey Press is determined to flood the internet with all that is bad, allegedly, about our government. Political stability and good government is one of our big marketing messages and the claim is backed by the success of our economy over the last 40 years. Please, GEP, stop knocking it unless you intend to underwrite our major capital projects rather than printing stickers.
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Let’s get this clear, Horace. The last 40 years ‘growth’ has had nothing to do with good governance and everything to do with how greedy foreign rich people are.
Let’s not kid ourselves. Stability, when being run by Establishment and Old School Ties is not a difficult thing to achieve in an island of 60K.
Any bunch of idiots could have made the tax dodging industry work. The trick is not showing the corruption. God save the Queen.
The question is how good the governance is for the local population. Do they feel well served?
What does it matter if we are on a list, if we are not happy, they are failing.
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Offshore financial services is a perfectly legitimate business sector and we should be proud of the fact that we are ranked highly by the OECD. They quantify their ranking system by taking into account – amongst other things – the regulatory environment and propriety of each jurisdiction.
I am more inclined to accept the OECD’s view of us than that of many our critics who often have very little idea of what it is we actually do here in Guernsey.
The question is not “how good the governance is for the local population. Do they feel well served?” – that is an entirely separate question.
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Indeed, CD. I was responding to Horace. We do what we do well and that should be recognised since what we do we do within their guidelines.
Trouble is, by saying that the critics are ignorant and then not being able to prove the critics wrong except for getting cronies to nod along, it’s basically taking the finance industry’s word for it.
$15T was the last number I heard it’s costing the world.
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I am not saying that critics are necessarily ignorant – I would just like to understand the basis on which they come up with ludicrous figures like $15T.
Who exactly has lost $15T as a result of the activities of Guernsey finance industry and how was that figure arrived at?
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CD
You are making the mistake that Guernsey is somehow not part of the global finance industry that failed spectacularly.
And that we ‘punch above our weight’.
Aren’t you embarrassed? Here they are, these genii, calling for our government to be more proactive to matters global, in effect wanting politicians that “understand what we do” to run the place like some private equity management structure. They want to spend scarce cash on getting someone in Brussels to lie about what we do in totality.
And yet they rob pensions (Dispatches Ch4 last night), they rob tax revenue ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/…/financial-adviser-reduced-tax-lloyds ), they destroy businesses by hoarding cash, and they rob depositors.
Unless these goons clean up their act, why the hell should we listen to a word they say? Why aren’t our politicians finding out why our reputation is mud around the world? Do they not care? No, they listen to the ‘sensible’ voices and they are convinced that the shiny car is worth it.
I would rather be led by a goat-on-a-string rather than have their opinion forced down my throat by the Guernsey Press every single day.
There are plenty of local sustainable businesses that could do with a couple of hundred grand. That sort of business will be here long after the bankers have been rehabilitated back into whatever ecosystem spawned them.
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Arnald – I think that CD knows full well that Guernsey is part of the finance industry. But I think that, unlike you, he appreciates that the finance industry is made up of many varied parts and that the parts in which we are active are not the parts that caused the packaging of dodgy loans and the building of paper houses.
As for the office in Brussels, there is a general feeling that this should be paid for my the Guernsey and Jersey finance industries, so no use of scarce public funds. And why would they need to lie? The idea is to educate and engage. Maybe you should attend.
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TL
I agree with the principle of the finance industry dispelling some of these (alleged) myths and accusations I bore everyone with, if some resemble those shared at EU level, derived from the same sources. However, as it is reported, this would be the office’s sole function.
Guernsey is not the finance industry.
The Guernsey people have supported the industry to the extent that the social fabric will fray more raggedly and more rapidly in the future (the trends in reported psych and social disorders is broadly rising), in order to maintain profits and perks predominantly for the multinationals that abuse their global reach. There have been impassioned calls for political reform and more funding from finance leaders. They have used language to suggest that there is a war being waged against us and that if They prevail then all Guernsey will perish and it would be all down to our collective cowardice. They have said that fulfilling civic responsibilities has to take a lower priority than portraying Guernsey as a benign part of a malicious web of minority interests with far too much unaccountable power and privilege.
The spiders are mostly hatched from Onshore. I agree with the general tack that without the deviousness of the major FCs then we would not be tarnished (as readily) and our under-the-radar strategy would have been more secure. But talk of ‘shutting us down’ is hysterical media fodder designed for ‘Churchill’ impact. Because of our inter-relationship with this rampant immorality , the City in particular, and the UK’s (and lesserly most EU members’) dependence on the power derived through the very wealth of the Top Robbers, it is inconceivable that they would launch a nuclear directive strike on anything other than businesses which are counter-indicatory to their fiscal needs. Guernsey OFC is, I am told, a decent contributor to the City bottom line. That is a contribution to 9% of the UKs GDP.
So here we are, us GP readers, a large chunk of literate Guernsey, being carpet bombed on a daily basis to be ‘educated’ on how good we are at providing for ourselves and for stimulating the global economy. ‘Educated’ as to how our elected representatives are to react to Giba concerns and what system they should adopt to facilitate this. ‘Educated’ on how their close ties to the systemic corruption that is blighting human lives is a lie based on jealousy and because of this ignorant heresy the public services, that Guernsey’s less fortunate but socially equal folk count on to feel equivalent, require a punishing austerity drive to somehow prove its worthiness to these demigods.
So I don’t understand. If everyone bar a few commies know what we do is for the greater good, why this panic, why the “attacks” and hostility?
Surely, for this type of certitude in itself, the “value for money” analogy the WAO suggests for the States, should be around 8 or 9 out if ten, no?
Is everyone quite sure about that?
Is the UK tax payer not ‘educated’ enough to understand?
Tax is optional? Secrecy jurisdictions were not a major contributor to the crash?
I’ve got so much to learn!
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