Dear Sir,

Between 2008 and 2014, the Island lost some 4,000 to 5,000 workers in International Business due to the recession. Some would say that the previous government had some help in those departing numbers by taking the IB sector for granted.

Can we get some of these high earners back to our shores? It would necessitate aggressive marketing on Bermuda’s part.

The perfect vehicle would be the Bermuda Business Development Agency, with its budget of some $4.5 million, headed by Ross Webber. The agency can make an impact by hiring highly incentivised sales people to go after reinsurance business. We have the infrastructure — zero corporate tax and the British legal system.

A perfect example of such sales people would be investment bankers on Wall Street. A poster child for these banks is Goldman Sachs — their salaries and commission numbers can be found online, and in some cases can reach up to $70 million a year.

A good place to start, with highly incentivised sales people, would be events such as the upcoming RIMS conference in New Orleans.

Normally we take the Gombeys, put on a good show and use our soft sales approach. Does this bring in the numbers we need? The writing is on the wall. IB numbers are a fraction of what they were.

Bermuda’s competition will also be at events such as the RIMS — Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Jersey, and so on. All those jurisdictions would like to take business from us, and if we are not careful, they will.

Knowing that our competitors are aggressive should be the wake-up call that spurs us to up our game to keep and get new business. I would thus urge Mr Webber, in conjunction with Minister Grant Gibbons, to implement a high-incentive sales programme for the people at the agency, with set targets.

Also, regarding the Island’s advertising campaigns, they seem primarily geared towards tourism.

Government states that 80 per cent of our GDP is derived from IB, with the rest from tourism. So wouldn’t it make sense to spend a larger portion of our advertising dollars to attract IB? If our advertising was geared more towards IB, we may stand a better chance of getting back some of the 4,000 to 5,000 IB workers we lost.

One final thought, the US publishes a nonfarm payroll jobs report each month — wouldn’t it be nice to know on a monthly basis the state of our economic health? This picture could be compiled by joining the monthly payroll tax records of IB workers, and their immigration work permits.

For example, a tally of those high-end permit holders, earning more than $100,000 a year, would give us a good indication of our economic health. We need to fill those empty office spaces in Hamilton, which in turn would help rev up the economy. The figures could be expanded to those making between $40,000 and $100,000, and those on less than $40,000.

Government could use these figures to monitor or, in extreme cases, institute a moratorium on low-end permit applications if, say, unemployment reached 9 per cent. This policy could be evaluated on a three or six-month basis.

Regarding the dissemination of tourism and business numbers, the Tourism Authority gives hard numbers on a regular basis, but for business development matters we are told “business registrations are up”, with no hard numbers — most business people require these when making decisions.

Ed Forbes, Paget