Oct 24 – Chief Minister Addresses Bankers
The following is the text of an address to the Gibraltar Bankers Association delivered yesterday at Grand Battery House
Mr Chairman,
Thank you for your kind words.
We will of course wish to continue to work with you as closely and as successfully as we have in the past months and now almost three years.
It’s been a busy week; but then again, has there been a quiet week in the past three years?
In London we have again promoted Gibraltar together with some 390 guests at our Financial Services Lunch, 200 guests at our Funds event, 150 guests at our eGaming breakfast, 100 Guests at our Shipping/Tourism breakfast and of course some 800 guests at our flagship reception at the Guildhall.
Many of you were there and will know that our message really is getting out there and is being warmly welcomed and received.
The format of the event may need some adjustments going forward and we would be happy to talk to you about that.
One innovation of my Government which I believe is right is that the Leader of the Opposition is now invited to the event. I think this is essential, despite it not having been the case before as we need to always ensure that doing the right thing in respect of the Financial Services World is not somehow allowed to become a partisan football as so much else in our community unfortunately is.
The same has been true of the online gaming industry.
And of course it is important to ensure that the infrastructure is there to deliver to your important industries not just in physical and legislative terms but also in human terms.
That is why I consulted many of you and many people within the Civil Service, including those who might have taken the post of Financial Secretary before the appointment of the excellent Albert Mena to the post.
Dilip Daryanam Tirathdas has been a "go-to-guy" for many of you for many years and his retirement was always going to be a challenging moment for any administration.
The absence of any meaningful succession planning meant that those who might have been able to do the job from inside the Civil Service did not wish to do so.
It is my job as Chief Minister to appoint the Financial Secretary and I know I have done so having consulted the right people.
And in particular, given the discussions I have had even with the Civil Service unions, I know that the appointment of Albert Mena is one that has been universally welcomed by everyone who wants to put Gibraltar first and see us continue to succeed in all the areas for which the Financial Secretary has responsibility or influence.
I know he is well known to most if not all of you and that you will agree he is a truly worthy appointee to succeed Dilip.
This time last year we met with the Executive Committee of the GBA to talk about your concerns in:
a. the lack of capacity in the mortgage market, and the consequent levels of concentration risk
b. the need for more banking opportunity in Gib and the inability of the Banks to meet the demands of ex-Barclays clients
c. the need to reduce the volume of cash and local cheques, contributed to in a significant way by GoG
This past year we have worked hard to meet these concerns and as you all now know GIB will be a reality in the first quarter of 2015,
GIB will be providing additional capacity to the market in all areas of retail banking including, of course, personal and corporate accounts, loans and mortgages and all the services you would expect a commercial retail bank to provide.
And yes, it will be a commercial bank, working as you all do to make a profit for its shareholders. It will work purely on normal commercial terms.
It will not be a bank with deep pockets, willing to lose large amounts to attract clients away from you though.
It will not put out loss-leader deals.
We are not in the business of pinching the clients of the banks who want to stay and continue to do successful business in Gibraltar
Indeed, to further assist you and after our discussions of last year, GoG has taken steps to eliminate the huge volume of cash and cheques it paid out on a monthly basis to recipients of regular payments from Government and this will I hope be rolled out in the coming months to alleviate another of your concerns.
I have to thank you for having worked closely with us in managing to minimise the disruption and impact of the Barclays scaling down. By working together we have succeeded in ensuring a smoother transition in the time leading up to the availability of further capacity in the market and, for that, we are most grateful.
But of course our focus this past 12 months has been on much more than that. We have given a huge push to raising the profile of Gibraltar as a serious jurisdiction in the financial services space.
With your assistance we are refreshing and reviewing many of our traditional products and introducing new ones with which you will all be able to work, offering new client solutions.
We will shortly be publishing new legislation on Foundations, trust companies and purpose trusts and, of course, we have been working closely with the regulator to improve the quality and accessibility of regulation to you all.
Speed to market today is fundamental and we believe we can deliver this like no other jurisdiction can.
As you know the economy continues to perform well, as does our ability to comply with our promise to you to deliver all the improvements set out in our 2011 Manifesto.
I am particularly pleased by the commencement of the works at the University of Gibraltar and believe the ability to train and have people qualify locally in the financial services sector at our University will be a further step in improving the standards of our labour pool in Gibraltar.
We have to seek to improve our proposition at every level. We can do better and I am convinced we will do better by focusing on improving all aspects of our offering, but always by working together in real partnership.
With our new Bank adding further capacity to the market, our new University offering specific and targeted learning opportunities, our improvements to the legal and regulatory environment and of course our new Stock Exchange and new products we will shortly roll out, I believe we are in a good place and ready to build further for your benefit, and of course the people of Gibraltar.
And those challenges we face will always be surmountable by our good faith and desire to work with you and the rest of our community in a partnership designed to deliver the best we can
The State Aid challenge to our Income Tax act will be surmountable easily if we have a fair and objective hearing.
Already I can give you the confidence that the 165 rulings that Snr Almunia has focused on are all clearly properly made and clearly not transactions chargeable to tax which have been exempted without thought or in an attempt to defeat our own chargeability criteria.
In fact, if anyone thought that a regime in Gibraltar could be based on the law saying one thing about chargeability to tax and rulings doing another, then they don't know Frank!
And they don't know anything about the fantastic and professional team we enjoy at the Tax Office
Indeed for Snr Almunia to have even suggested that our tax rules are not observed by our own tax authorities is to impute to our culture, "practices" never manifested here but with which he is culturally more aligned.
But in any event we shall be ready to talk to the new incumbent at DG Competition on these matters - ready for reality to shine over nationalist fantasy.
And we shall also remain ready to attend ad hoc talks, parallel to the Trilateral Forum for Dialogue, if we are able to finally agree the parameters for these.
Today's fantasy piece in El Pais is not reflective of where we are in respect of the potential for ad hoc talks.
The idea that there will be two delegations one headed by a Spanish official and another of which Gibraltar would form part, headed by the extremely able and talented Jill Morris Director Europe of the FCO, is just too ludicrous for words.
Both my Government and the United Kingdom Governments have had to issue statements today correcting that nonsense.
We will nonetheless keep working towards trying to promote dialogue as the sharpest weapon in the arsenal of dispute resolution.
Gemma Araujo of La Linea has been talking to Gibraltar since she was elected. La Linea controls important parts of the real estate around the frontier and she is an important part of any such contact.
La Linea in particular should not be excluded from ad hoc talks as the article in El Pais has today suggested might be the case. In any case the composition of the delegations is not yet agreed.
And any talks that do go on - as I told the Parliament last week - would have to be ad referenda to the three Governments sending technical representatives.
But we shall keep trying despite mischievous attempts to throw us off track and pretend we have somehow ceded when we remain steadfast in our positions as we have from the beginning.
Because our 10.3% GDP growth and our 6.5% employment growth can be even greater if we are able to work with the people of the whole of the area of the Bay of Gibraltar on the basis of mutual respect.
That opportunity would deliver for us as much as it would for them.
And we will not tire of describing the arc of prosperity that could be created if modern good faith trumped a sovereignty claim three centuries old.
On this as with all else, we will continue to work 72 hours a day in good faith to try to deliver.
Thank you.
