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What a relief! - October 2010

Your Chamber continues to lobby hard for the re-introduction of transitional relief for business (non-domestic) rates. The ‘text’ for our campaign is ‘persistence pays profit’.

Get yourself connected - September 2010

September 1 and 15 are important dates for the region as our TV signals go digital and analogue is switched off. By all accounts the transition has been smoother than expected elsewhere in the country with minimal disruption.

Transport at a Crossroads - An open letter to the Minister

The Chamber, in association with a range of other organisations and businesses across the North-east has written to Stewart Stevenson, Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change, asking him to make a commitment to a number of key transport priorities for the North-east.

wet and windy

The forecast for the renewable energy sector in Scotland is wet and windy. But we shouldn’t confuse the short term weather forecast with the longer term climatic changes that are giving much more useful information about the long range trends. These trends are the source of the commercial opportunities that the region would do well to exploit over the next two decades.

They think it's all over ... it is now ...

They say that a week is a long time in politics; certainly a month is a long time in the production of our Business Bulletin.

At the time of writing, the election campaign is just swinging into action; Gordon Brown faced the young pretenders in the first televised leaders’ debate last night and this morning five of our local parliamentary candidates held their own debate at the Chamber’s Hustings Business Breakfast – at the time of reading the campaigning banners will have been put away for another term and we’ll all know whose name will go on the letter box at No 10.

politics, sport and religion

Used to be that you were best advised to avoid politics, sport and religion as topics of conversation in polite society (sex was never mentioned). Received wisdom was that they had the potential to turn the civilised conversation at your soiree from nice to nasty in the time it takes to say ‘David Icke’ (good of him to match his tracksuit to AGCC corporate colours). Oh how times have changed.

your vote counts - use it

Before we know it the General Election will be upon us. The consensus at the time of writing seems to be that the date will be May 6th, but only Gordon Brown really knows. Usually there is a four to six week campaigning period, which means that from early April we will be weathering the full force of the electioneering from the political parties.

focus on the big issues in 2010

As we move ever closer to the anticipated May general election, your Chamber has started to prepare a manifesto for business in the North-east. During the campaigning period, we will want to impress on all candidates, the importance that commerce attaches to the big issues: transport infrastructure, planning modernisation, the containment of red tape, skills & training, a master-plan for the city centre, the need to attract and deliver flagship investment projects, delivering the ACSEF agenda, and getting our fair share of the funding available.

members - the heart of AGCC

Over the last six months we have been working away on your behalf to refresh your Chamber.

The first decision was the easiest to make. We wanted to re-state that members are at the heart of the Chamber, and that members are ambitious that this region should play a big role in the future of the country. So we revised our ‘aim’ to read: Our members at the heart of the Chamber: Our Chamber at the heart of a strong and sustainable economy in the City and Shire. Our region at the heart of a prosperous country. In the many meetings that I have had with members since joining the Chamber, this was the message that you gave me: you want your Chamber to make sure that the business community is playing a key role in securing the best future for your business, for the region, for Scotland and for the UK.

no but yes, but no

Catch phrases and one-liners from our favourite TV shows have the capacity to capture the mood of modern society in a word or two.

As far as street philosophy goes, Vicky Pollard’s catch phrase from the “Little Britain” show – “no, but yes, but no” - caught the imagination of viewers, but cannot compete with some of the riper observations of street philosopher Rab C Nesbit. My favourite is his comment to camera on the quality of the action in his Govan bar (this was during his teetotal phase) – “It’s like Strindberg in here. With glottal stops.”

the abc of uvw

Over the last few weeks, the Chamber has seen more ‘hockey-stick’ shaped graphs than you can, well, shake a hockey stick at. Are these evidence of ‘green shoots’, and if so how robust is the recovery?

a regional heart

With record numbers of visitors expected and record exhibitors booked at Offshore Europe it’s clear to see that activity in the oil and gas sector is still vibrant – and business opportunities are there for those who have the foresight (and funding) to grasp them – despite the short-term impacts of the downturn. It is vital that this sector remains attractive for new investment – for Scotland and for the UK as a whole – especially on the international/export front.

is export growth a way out of the downturn?

Many members will have seen reports in the media earlier this year of the government and government agencies exhorting commerce to ‘export their way out of a recession’, but just how realistic is this option?

planning ahead

Our members consistently tell us that the two main issues which impact on their performance are transport and planning.

When the Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Future (ACSEF) was first formed and began to populate their outline plan with more detail, it was no surprise, therefore, that two of the key priorities identified related to transport and planning.

feeding our future

There is a tendency to regard the economy of the Aberdeen City and Shire region as wholly dependent on oil and gas. Though this sector is undoubtedly the main wealth-producing component of the regional economy, it is by no means the only sector to produce sustainable prosperity for the North-east.

support you can count on

It would be an understatement to say we live in interesting times. Today times are not only interesting but they are difficult and for some becoming even more difficult.

With the "credit crunch" and the loss of liquidity in the banking system, businesses are finding it difficult in some cases to survive, never mind grow and flourish. The economy overall is predicated to shrink possibly, if the IMF figures are to be believed, by 2.8%, although the Government would have us believe that the UK is better placed to recover than some other countries.

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