The Appleby’s release stated: “Continued tough economic conditions have impacted levels of new company registration activity offshore globally. However, the Bermuda data reveal that the jurisdiction continues to steadily edge back to the levels last seen in 2008. Looking at the whole of 2012, Bermuda’s activity dropped off slightly (by two percent).”Rory Gorman, managing director of Appleby Services (Bermuda) Ltd, is quoted as saying: “The year was certainly buoyed by activity in the second six months of the year. There are signs that 2013 will be a watershed year in terms of seeing a universal return to pre-2009 activity levels across the offshore jurisdictions.”It stated there were 37,881 new offshore company formations in the jurisdictions covered by the report, a decrease of 3.6 percent from the same period a year earlier, and a deeper decrease of 11 percent on the preceding six months in 2012.Overall growth in new company incorporations for the majority of jurisdictions stayed flat in 2012, which proved to be a year of consolidation following large increases in annual new incorporations between 2009 and 2011.