Immigration issues are in the spotlight once again following Government’s meeting with industry stakeholders to review the first draft of the 2012 Work Permit Policies.Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Patrice Minors met last Friday with representatives from the Association of Bermuda International Companies (ABIC), the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR), the Trade Union Congress, the Bermuda Hotel Association, the Construction Association of Bermuda, the Bermuda Human Resources Association and the Bermuda Employers Council to review current work permit policies.While neither Government nor many of the stakeholders present would reveal any proposed changes, many tell The Royal Gazette the eight-hour long meeting was a positive step in the right direction.Leila Maderios, senior vice-president of ABIR, which represents 22 global insurance and reinsurance companies that employ 1,700 people including 1,100 Bermudians, said the meeting was very productive.“ABIR was pleased to have been invited together with other stakeholders to participate in a day long work shop with the Hon Minister Minors and her staff to review work permit policy and to explore possible ways in which to enhance Bermuda’s attractiveness for job creation and retention.“As well as considering new ideas we looked at ways where efficiencies could be achieved in the process. The meeting was productive and all parties present were engaged in the dialogue. The commitment of the Minister and her staff to consider ideas and suggestions was genuine and we look forward to continued opportunities to progress this important initiative.”Keith Jensen, president of the Bermuda Employers’ Council said the stakeholders’ meeting was an effective way of reviewing proposals made to Minister Minors during the past year in an atmosphere of constructive dialogue.“Operating in a changing economic international environment requires different approaches, in our view, to keep the Island competitive without sacrificing the legitimate interests of Bermudians,” he said. “The dynamics of the meeting stimulated much discussion underpinning the understanding of respective positions and driving towards solutions.”Another source who was present at the meeting told The Royal Gazette that just some of the suggestions discussed include: allowing companies to promote employees without requiring a new work permit; automatically granting companies who set up in Bermuda five work permits for the first year; and establishing ‘Global Work Permits’ allowing companies to transfer staff to Bermuda from other branches.While changes have not yet been announced, Minister Minors said last month she anticipated the 2012 Work Permit Policies will be implemented “within months” of this latest stakeholders meeting.The executive director of the Bermuda Chamber of Commerce, Joanne MacPhee, who was also present at the meeting, says reform to the work permit policies is critical.“The importance of Immigration reform cannot be over stated; attracting and retaining overseas talent is paramount to the Island’s long-term success and is a vital component of any recession recovery strategy.“The lengthy discussions were both cordial and respectful and while we may not have come away with everything we think is necessary to grow our economy, I believe there was a genuine desire to work with industry towards finding positive solutions.“The very fact that industry partners were invited to sit around the table with the Ministry and discuss the draft policy document together, line by line was in and of itself huge step forward. Hopefully the Minister and her team took our constructive advice to heart and as a result we will see a final document which truly address the issues and takes us a step further towards a stronger economy.”Shadow Finance Minister Bob Richards applauded Minister Minors for bringing stakeholders together, but said Government needs to do far more than just focus on work permits.“I’m very pleased to see that the Minister is looking to try to improve it [work permit policy], but we’ll see what comes out,” he said. “I can’t judge what they’re going to do until they do it, but I know what we would do as a party.“Back in the 1960s, there wasn’t much competition and Bermuda could be bureaucratic and it didn’t matter, but now, it’s critical and it’s taken this government years to come to the realisation that what they’re doing is wrong.“The fact that the Minister is looking to review the situation is a tacit admission that what they’re doing has not worked.”Mr Richards also said he agrees with what Chamber of Commerce president Ronnie Viera said in an article in this newspaper yesterday — that more guest workers are needed to improve Bermuda’s economy — and that Immigration reform is an important step in making that happen.“It’s pretty simple arithmetic,” Mr Richards said. “You can’t have a growing economy with a shrinking population. We cannot snap our fingers and produce more Bermudians.“Our birth rate isn’t keeping up with the needs of the economy, so the simple arithmetic is — if we can’t snap our fingers and produce more Bermudians in the economy, we need to get more people in the economy from somewhere.“I want to make it clear, I’m not supporting bringing in expatriate workers to do jobs that Bermudians can do. We certainly don’t want to have expatriate workers that squeeze Bermudians out of the workforce, we don’t want that.“A proper and consistent work permit policy is still required but certainly, we could use some more people coming to Bermuda from abroad living here, renting our houses, patronising our supermarkets, our restaurants, our retail stores, etc — that’s what drives the economy and that’s how these people are contributing to our economy.”Mr Richards says whatever changes are made to work permit policy, they need to be clear and consistent.“It’s clearly not consistent. We’ve had some people who can’t get a timely response from Immigration for positions that clearly nobody local is qualified for. It takes months — many months. And then you have other people who seem to have licence to abuse Immigration policies and you get people in here doing jobs that Bermudians can do.“There’s no question that immigration is at the epicentre of our economic problems here. The work permit practice and policies are inconsistent they’re not timely.”Some have said changed in work permit policy may be too little too late. Mr Richards disagrees.“I don’t believe that at all. We’re very fortunate that we have a sector in Bermuda (i.e. insurance and reinsurance) that really hasn’t been hammered by the global recession like other industries have. Insurance has been very resilient. That’s why the whole idea of blaming Bermuda’s problems on the global recession is nonsense.“We’ve got a good solid industry here, we’ve got to make it work better for us and we’ve got to be more aggressive in promoting it. And we have to rearrange the way we do things here so we make ourselves more competitive.”Mr Richards says while immigration reform will be helpful, it’s not the only thing Government should be focused on in this economy.“Work permits are not the only issue. I don’t think that we have been promoting ourselves as well as we can. We, as a jurisdiction, have to get out there and beat the bushes for business.“I don’t believe that our efforts to promote Bermuda internationally as an offshore financial jurisdiction have been sufficient — we haven’t devoted enough resources to it. Just look at the resource mismatch on what Government spends promoting international business and what government spends promoting tourism — it’s a joke. We spend I think $30-odd million promoting tourism which is five to seven percent of our GDP. We spend $5 million or $6 million promoting our international business, which is 75 percent of our GDP. That makes no sense.“Even if we are super successful in promoting tourism, and we double the number of tourists that come to Bermuda in a year, it won’t have the same impact on our economy as if we increase international business by 20 percent because international business is so much a bigger part of our overall economy.“I’ve heard members of the government say ‘Bermuda is open for business.’ I don’t believe that that is good enough. It’s not good enough to just be open for business. We have to be open for business and out there going aggressively to get business. There’s a difference between passive and being active.”