New finance links open with Gulf

Monday 21st March 2011, 3:00PM GMT.

From left: Jersey Finance chairman Jonathan White, Sheikha Lubna, Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf and British Ambassador Dominic Jermey

CLOSER links between Jersey’s finance industry and a region which already accounts for more than $31 billion of investments in the Island have been forged by the opening of a Jersey Finance office in Abu Dhabi.

The aim of the office is to strengthen trade with the United Arab Emirates and other countries in the Gulf Co-operation Council, which at the start of this year accounted for 12 per cent, around $31.37 billion, of total deposits in Jersey offshore banks.

The move will also benefit the Gulf nation’s standing on the world map as a trade, finance and economic hub, according to UAE Foreign trade minister Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi.

Sheikha Lubna, who is ranked high in lists of the world’s most important women, made the comments at a reception, held in the gardens of the British Embassy in Abu Dhabi on Saturday night, to mark the official opening of the Jersey Finance office.

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1
pop

March 21, 2011 at 5:17 pm

Sheikha Lubna, who is ranked high in lists of the world’s most important women,???
Most important ? What does it mean ?

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2
Pip Clement

March 21, 2011 at 9:54 pm

Who knows what it means?
She is well connected within the Sharjah ruling family but the UAE is deeply traditional in the roles of men and women.
Sharjah is still ruled by Sharia law and homosexuality is punishable by fines, imprisonment, beatings and possibly death, so it is not exactly a fine, liberal democracy like Jersey

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3
Arnald

March 22, 2011 at 1:29 pm

Ah yes. ‘The Gulf’. Bastion of democracy and free-trade.

Seriously, when reading responses from the likes of Geoff Cook to criticisms of the opacity of the CIs finance industry, it becomes clear that they state that transparency and free-trade are paramount. Yet here we are cosying up to the most corrupt and opaque, the most anti-democratic and fundamentalist regimes in the hope of hiding some rich individuals cash from the eyes of the nations that wealth was derived in.

Weasle words from vultures.

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4
joker

March 22, 2011 at 4:52 pm

Arnald

Something has to pay for Jersey’s ever increasing welfare bill.

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5
Arnald

March 22, 2011 at 5:35 pm

joker
With all the success of the finance industry to bring wealth to the CIs, why is the “welfare bill” increasing?

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