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Jun 22 - Chief Minister’s Address To The Accountants’ Annual Dinner 2017

Here’s the full speech delivered by the Chief Minister at the Accountants’ Annual Dinner.

Madame President,


It is a pleasure to be with you this evening.

When I addressed you some years ago, many thought I had announced in my speech that my wife Justine and I were expecting another child. It wasn’t the case then. But it is now.

There have to be some moments of joy in the year since the EU referendum!

We are almost exactly on the first anniversary of the Brexit referendum. A year in which we have had to re-adjust our vision of the future. A year in which we have had to review our potential unique selling points as a quality financial services jurisdiction. And a year in which we have faced gloating from our neighbours and our competitors.

During that time you will know we have covered an enormous amount of ground. Much of that is already well documented.

Tonight, Madame President, I am pleased to report that our ongoing discussions with Her Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom continue to progress positively. We expect that the results will be to deliver continued UK market access which is so important to our business model. And that will extend not just to our companies and services, but also to our people.

It is important that we now focus exclusively, to the exclusion of all else, on the many challenges and opportunities that Brexit will bring us.

In this respect, my Government is most grateful to the private sector for their significant interaction with us, in developing these possibilities.

I am also grateful to Albert Isola for his sterling work in this area and for the work of all ministers in my Government of many, and many diverse, talents. A lot of what I am reporting on tonight is not my work as Minister for Finance but his work as a highly talented, charismatic and industry connected Minister for Financial Services.

Mine is not a government that stops delivering on all fronts because the Chief Minister is doing something else. And the importance of Cabinet Government has I think been accentuated by the challenge that Brexit has presented us.

Madame President, I must especially thank your association, as whenever we engage in these processes, your members are always the first to support and share with us your expertise and knowledge in these areas. Whether in the Finance Centre Council or directly in contact with the Government, your thinking and your vision is more than just helpful, it is largely determinative of much of our policy thinking.

In the words of President Carter at the end of one of the Camp David sessions when he thanked those who had helped resolve a particularly thorny issue: “Thank you for allowing us to take the credit for your work.”

In policy terms, we are now in the process of considering the responses to our consultation on Distributed Ledger Technology.

The fintech community continues to grow apace and you will know that our proposed approach to the regulation of this sector has attracted significant interest from firms in this space, and we believe this will provide a new and dynamic line of business for our financial services community.

We are working to a target launch date of this new environment of 1st January 2018.

We have welcomed and worked closely with our Funds sector through GFIA.

We have recently agreed improvements to the Private Fund and the Experienced Investor Fund regimes and we are working on further changes to provide us with a more competitive and attractive product line which will in the coming years make us well placed to compete with our jurisdictions. The new regime is currently being drafted and I am told it will be introduced on 1st July 2017.

The ongoing work to renew and consolidate our entire legislation in Financial Services continues and I am grateful to the Finance Centre Council for having agreed to set up a sub-committee to work with us on draft legislation. The first part will be delivered to them on 12th July 2017. The work will be completed in its entirety by the end of the year.

We are also working with the Insurance community in considering a number of possible improvements particularly in the area of PCC’s which we hope and expect to progress further.

We will also be pushing forward with our Gaming Review. Although we had put the review on hold during the immediate post Brexit period, we will now be progressing this with the Gaming community and their advisors, including discussions on Gaming charges.

Madame President, we are also working on delivering the long awaited eGovernment revolution. We have done a lot in this respect. But I nonetheless accept this has taken us longer than we would have hoped. I am however confident that once delivered our new systems will have been worth the wait. They will revolutionize how we operate as Government and importantly, how we interact with citizens and businesses alike. I have no doubt that your ability to interact with us fully and securely online will bring us all significant benefits and I am grateful for your patience in enabling us the time to get it right.

In light of all that, I have an apology to make for having misled some of you who might have attended the recent Chamber Annual Dinner. I told the Chamber that the FSC has issued 21 new licences since the 24th June last year. When I have tried to stand that figure up, I confess that it was an error. In fact, 26 new financial services licences have been issued since the result of the Brexit referendum was announced. I stand corrected.

  • 2 are Category 3 Mifid licences 

  • 4 are for new corporates licenced as company managers 

  • 6 are for new individuals licenced as company managers 

  • 3 are AIFIM licences 

  • 2 are EIF Director licences 

  • 1 is for an EIF Fund 

  • 1 is for a new insurance company 

  • Another is for a new insurance intermediary company 

  • 1 is for an occupational pension 

  • 2 more are for MIFID branches 

  • 1 is for a prospectus 

  • And 2 are for statutory auditors. 


That is the total of 26. 
In addition, you might like to know that there have been two licence extensions in the insurance sector also. 
I am sorry to have provided such an extensive list, but I understand that there are some doubting Thomases out there! 
I have, I hope, nonetheless given you a feel for some of the important areas of business that are being licenced and the areas of business we are working on developing further. 
I guess, in that respect, Brexit is a journey, not a destination. And in that respect, well done for choosing as your speaker tonight a man widely credited as the world’s greatest living explorer. With a transglobal expedition under his belt, 7 marathons in seven continents on 7 consecutive days, and having successfully crossed Antartica during the southern winter, Sir Ranulph knows a little about journeys. I am asking him to come back and give us all lessons on the “Victorian buccaneering spirit” which we hear is what British business is expected to deploy in the future. 
[Sir Ranulph, we have lecturing vacancies at the University!] 
Although I am left to wonder if you have decided to have me at the table with an ex-member of the SAS and an ex-member of the SBS in order to exert some special “Desiree style” pressure on me for a concession in next week’s Budget. 
Frankly, I think you have got your way by infiltrating my Ministry of Finance with one of your own. And at the very top, at that, with Albert Mena as Financial Secretary. He too deserves much of the credit for the economic success I will report to Parliament next week. 
Of course, at this time of the year, I would have been very much more comfortable in talking to you about next week’s budget, but Parliamentary protocol deprives me of that opportunity. What I would say, is that I have no doubt you will all be pleased to hear of the strong progress our economy continues to make when I deliver my budget address on Monday. 


What I will report to Parliament in the second reading of the Appropriation Bill this year will disappoint our neighbours and our competitors. It may even disappoint some in the Parliament. But it will please everyone in Gibraltar who believes in our future as a thriving business hub. It will please every one in our community who wants to see a strong Gibraltar able to prosper even in challenging circumstances. And it will please every Gibraltarian family whose future depends on our continued prudent investment in the growth of this great but small nation of ours.

When I report to Parliament next week, I will once again not seek to take credit for the economic performance of Gibraltar. You are the engine of this economy. You and the people who work with you and for you. And I congratulate you all on your energy, your determination, your innovation and your resilience. Because you are the success of this economy that I get to report on.

Once again, thank you for letting us take credit for your work. We will not be shy to acknowledge that we are reporting your success. And for that reason, I know we will continue to work together to deliver the very best for our community.

And in that way, Madame President, I have every confidence that our generation will meet and surpass our expectations as we face the challenges ahead.

The evacuation generation did it.
 The referendum generation did it.
 And we, the Brexit generation, will do it to. Thank you.


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