The international business community is committed to Bermuda but is not an open chequebook and does not have to take care of other troubled sectors in Bermuda, according to a leading Island businessman.

David Ezekiel, head of the Association of Bermuda International Companies (ABIC), also told Rotarians at a gathering yesterday that while international business had no intentions of leaving, it could ship out of the Island if conditions were changed too radically for its liking.

After pointing out the many positive things the sector did for the Island, he said: "There is no chequebook and there is no deal that says we take care of it all."

He said that international business contributed $10 million to charity and employed 3,000 people, 2,000 of which were Bermudians, but the sector was not the answer to all the Island's woes.

While listing what international business is and is not to the gathered Rotarians, he said: "Another thing that international businesses is not, it is not an open cheque book to solve anyone else's problems.

"It's not long ago a reasonably prominent businessman basically said `look at all the money they have, and take a look at how little money we have, why don't they pay it all.' Why not?

"It's not the deal. It is absolutely not the deal. The deal is the rules were a certain way when international business came in, the deal is that local business needs to meet the obligations it has always met and local businesses are facing real challenges.

"The retail and the hospitality industries are going through a very, very tough time and thank goodness international business is here, to shield this economy during a very, very tough time."

But he said that it was not the job of his sector to bail out any other troubled areas. He added: "What else is international business not? It is not here to stay, no matter what.

"I came to you with what it is and I said it is here to stay, and it is here to stay as long as the environment it came to remains relatively unchanged. And as I said you cannot get into the mentality that says, let's get you in and then do something else.."

He added: "We cannot put up one sticker, and once you get the people in, say the price has changed.

"s I said international business comes here under very well defined rules and really all it asks is that the rules stay the same. There will be changes, there will be changes due to changes in social structure and we've seen many."

He also pointed to the opportunities available to young Bermudians because of the sector and the trickle-down effect that had on the whole economy.

He said: " I don't think it's an overstatement to say that the success of international business is absolutely critical to the success of this country.

"It is by far the largest piece of the economy now and I think it needs to be said that in international business and in the sector, whether we know it or not, we have an industry that any other country in this world would die for.

"It's clean, relatively smoke free, and relative to its contribution to the economy the strain it puts on the infrastructure is relatively small.

"Now, a number of people will react to that because all you hear is the infrastructure for international companies." In the sector's defence, he said international companies employed 3,000 people, 2000 of whom were Bermudian.

"There is certainly a trickle-down effect in that the Archer Report said that about another 9,000 jobs are directly affected by international business and a further 4,500 jobs were peripherally impacted.

"So if you take all of those numbers there is an impact but again it needs to be said, that there is absolutely no gain without pain.

"And what you have to do and what we have to do as a country is determine whether the small pain we feel in relation to the international business is worth what it brings to us. And I think the answer you will hear is a resounding yes."

And, for an example of Bermuda's success, he pointed to Andrew Carr, one of his committee members.

He said that he had just come back from Dublin, and the subject of his speech was "Can Dublin become the Bermuda of Europe?"

Mr. Ezekiel said: "Now, our competitors, they eye daily, they envy us daily and they look for any slippage in what we do and believe me there are competitors everywhere."

He pointed to the well-known ones, Cayman Island, Barbados, Luxembourg, Vermont, Dublin, Guernsey, New Jersey but added that there was a growing number of others on-shore in the US.

He said: "South Carolina just put in some new legislation. New York is actually following Bermuda and now introducing captive legislation.

"Competition is out there all the time - nothing we are afraid of. Bermuda's motto Whither The Fates Lead Us is very much a motto for the international companies sector. We have faced a thousand challenges before and we will deal with the next thousand."

He also said that international business had its own unique characteristics and challenges.

"It is always difficult when someone says international business should look exactly like us, in terms of looking like a local business. But international business does face some different challenges. It's a new industry to this Island. It is an industry whose competition is not on this Island. The competition is global and as such at this stage has intellectual capital needs that can't be met from the local workforce. And that is a challenge for us."

lFull transcript of Mr. Ezekiel's speech in tomorrow's paper.