One of the highest profile delegations to travel out of Bermuda is to go to New York this week to promote the Island as a good place to do business.

Premier Alex Scott, Finance Minister Paula Cox and chairman of the Bermuda Monetary Authority Cheryl-Ann Lister top the list at the day-long discussions and talks aimed at asset managers, private client lawyers and hedge and trust funds managers as well as media sessions in the afternoon.

It is the first time in four years that the ?Bermuda Briefing? is taking place and is back because of demand from industry professionals in New York.

?We are always in the limelight for the wrong reasons, and we want to be in the limelight for the right reasons,? said Deborah Middleton, chief executive officer at Bermuda International Business Association. ?And this will help get that message across.?

Ms Middleton said that about 90 businesspeople had signed up for the briefing sessions ? a 30 percent increase on the last time they did the same thing four years ago.

?We are very encouraged by the response,? said Ms Middleton. ?The fact that the Premier is coming is a big draw.?

The Premier and Ms Cox will be flying up from Washington DC where they have been lobbying in time for tomorrow?s briefing.

There will be two briefing sessions tomorrow morning at the upscale St. Regis Hotel on Fifth Avenue, with the first a breakfast session kicking off at 8 a.m., and the second at 10.30 a.m. Each session will be introduced by the Premier, followed by a regulatory overview from Ms Lister and an E-commerce and telecoms overview from the Government?s E-commerce advisor, Nigel Hickson.

Then three panels will be formed, one on hedge funds called ?Bermuda: The Ideal Climate to Grow Your Fund?, one on securitisation, ?Bermuda Perspectives on Securitisation and and Structured Finance?, and another on trusts, ?Bermuda and Trusts: a Winning Combination?.

The Bermudian panels include executives from Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Appleby Spurling and Hunter, Bank of Bermuda and Conyers Dill & Pearman.

?We will be giving a very positive Bermuda message and the objective is to correct any misconceptions there might be out there about Bermuda and allay fears about our reputation,? said Ms Middleton.

After the sessions, which are scheduled to last an hour, there will be a lunch where Ms Cox is the keynote speaker.

Then Ms Middleton and some of the Government and private sector panellists will head off to the offices of the Wall Street Journal and Business Week for media briefings on Bermuda.

?They are pretty even handed and they approach us from a business stand point and they already know a lot about us and our reputation as a jurisdiction and know we have the balance right.

?They know we are not in the business of taking on marginal business. The know we are not taking money out the US.

?The money that comes to us would not be staying there anyway, we are taking it from other jurisdictions.?