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Should London be more like Dubai?
22 July 2008
OK, the City will never have beaches, weeks of uninterrupted sunshine or temperatures in excess of 40 degrees, but it could probably muster up lenient tax regulations for overseas bankers. Is this what's needed to make sure London is still a global financial centre in 10 years' time?
According to the Telegraph, some people think so.
The Treasury's new Financial Services Global Competitiveness Group has engaged McKinsey & Co. to produce a report looking at what can be done to see off the threat from nascent financial centres.
Dubai appears to be considered the most threatening. In the words of the article, it has gone from being “bleak” and having “Arab-style buildings in one area” and “not much in the way of entertainment”, to (in our words) a fully fledged expat pleasure palace.
The Telegraph quotes an “insider”, who says the McKinsey report should result in “radical change”: “One idea is to build a London Financial District with special property and tax regulations, along the lines of Dubai. Perhaps better tax rules should be introduced for foreign companies and workers.”
Do you agree? Should overseas bankers pay lower taxes than born and bred British ones? And is Dubai really that much of a threat anyway? Your opinions please...
In the business community we have understood that no longer do the G7 make economic frameworks for the world. To quote Richard Watts 'No longer do sovereign governments have the luxury of setting national taxation policy it is now dictated to by the Global market'. We must look at the failure of our political systems and prepare them for a meaner, leaner, smaller future if we wish to compete.
Rob Jones 22 Jul 2008
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