O’Conall Street

Over 100 international business leaders are tucking into the Ulster Fry this morning preparing for the big investment conference. The day got off to a good start in Weber Shandwick with two of our global clients’ CEOs leading the Good Morning Ulster interviews. Nortel and All State are examples of companies which invested in the North some time ago and are happy to stay on.

Of course as economy Minister, Nigel Dodds, said the elephant in the room remains the uncompetitive rate of corporation tax in NI versus the Republic. It would help greatly if the British government acknowledged this by granting a preferential rate to NI. In the meantime there is plenty the North can offer in terms of economic advantage.

There is an interesting report in today’s Belfast Telegraph on the relative cost of living in Belfast and Dublin. Mercer Consulting in their annual survey of major cities found that Belfast is 40% cheaper than Dublin which is rapidly becoming  very, very expensive place to live. This is something potential investors will note and could well mitigate the tax differentials between the two jurisdictions.

Watched the Apprentice last night. I hope our VIP visitors gave it a miss. All those qualifications and not an ounce of intelligence between them. Maybe I’m getting old and cranky but you would expect a bunch of super dooper graduates to know what kosher chicken was. Me thinks a little less time in front of the mirror and little more with their face in a book would be a good start.

Great to see Brian Lenihan promoted to Finance Minister. He is a class act and deserving of promotion. It will be interesting to watch this legal eagle with serious government pedigree navigate his way through a very challenge brief.

Off to do some work now.  

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 8:51 am and is filed under Business, Corporate Communications, Corporate Responsibility, Current Affairs, Public Affairs, Public Relations, The Media, Weber Shandwick. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.