You might think that with all the anti-offshore
rhetoric around right now, that Jersey’s finance industry would be in a
downward spiral. Well figures released
today seem to show that it is in rude health.
According to the Island’s Survey of Financial Institutions, profits in
the finance sector rose by more than 75% last year, to just under £1.1 billion,
and employment figures remained level.
It appears that the good fortune is not distributed
evenly throughout the sector, as an analysis of the figures shows that the
majority of the phenomenal growth came from a small number of businesses. This tends
to support an observation I have often made, that market instability seems to
be sorting out the men from the boys, with the top players pulling away from
the pack.
More pleasingly, it seems that profit is not rising because
of cost cutting – on the contrary, expenditure
on goods and services by the finance industry was up by approximately 10% to
£760 million, equating to £410 million being spent on-island by finance firms
alone. This demonstrates the critical
importance of the industry to the local economy, over and above its tax
contribution.
These figures will be welcome news indeed for an industry which has faced a number of challenges in recent times.
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