Most companies which have recently located to Bermuda have come to the Island for its tax regime and its regulations, according to a survey carried out for the Ministry of Telecommunications and E-commerce.

The survey asked those companies that have recently established a physical presence on the Island a separate set of questions as part of the E-business Survey 2002, which was made public on Monday.

In their responses, four in ten (38.3) percent said they had come to Bermuda because of the Island's fiscal regime.

One in four - or 25 percent - said they moved to Bermuda said that the presence of related businesses had been the hot attraction for the move.

A smaller number, 16.7 percent, cited Bermuda's location between the US and Europe as the determining factor for moving to the Island.

The remaining 20 percent of those surveyed did not say why they had moved to the Island.

Of all the companies that moved to Bermuda, more than half, 56.1 percent, said they did not consider any other country when they decided to go offshore. One in five, 21.1 percent considered the Cayman Islands and seven percent examined the possibility of moving to the Bahamas.

The survey was carried out by Walton Brown's company Research Innovations for an estimated $15,000,

Information for the survey was collected from 513 Bermuda-based companies by a telephone survey which were picked out of a sample of 800 supplied by Government.

Minister of Telecommunications and E-commerce Renee Webb said that this survey was not to become an annual survey but could be taken every two or so years to check the state of this part of the economy.