quite an event

It’s an eventful month at the AECC. This early part of the month sees Offshore Europe, the biggest event in the North-east economic calendar, bring thousands of visitors to the city as delegates and exhibitors to meet to evaluate how the industry is placed today and how it will meet the demands of a changing future.

Once the dust has settled on that, we here at the Chamber will focus our attention on our big event - our annual Northern Star Business Awards on September 24.

The event will showcase some of the brightest and best examples of North-east business – across all sectors, not just the O&G sector – which despite the challenges of the past year have flourished and grown, won new contracts, developed new technologies, instigated new ways of working, all of which have given them the confidence to put themselves up for public scrutiny through our awards system.

The job of the Chamber now is to try to ensure that these businesses, and all others across our region, receive the government support to support them through the coming year and beyond.

The next Government will face some fundamental economic issues, not least of which will be identifying future sources of economic growth and jobs. No organisation is better placed to support that initiative than the British Chambers of Commerce network. The network’s 55 accredited Chambers, representing some 100,000 member businesses and five million employees has daily, direct access to the real issues affecting business and what needs to be done to address those.

One of the most important pieces of policy being carried out at the moment is finalising our election manifesto. Within it we will seek to work very closely with Government to tackle key business priorities – as identified by our members - to consolidate the country’s economic recovery with business as the innovators and generators of wealth at the forefront.

AGCC has directly fed into this process using the feedback we’ve had from members through policy discussions and through the Chamber Council and Board and we will continue to be involved in the process.

For our members, making the most of opportunities to feed into our ongoing consultation process is essential. A good example is the item which follows about how points raised in the AGCC- led BCC response to the Government’s North Sea Fiscal Review have set the tone for the latest paper produced by Gordon Brown’s Energy Envoy Malcolm Wicks.

We can, and do, voice your opinion.

Need for Fiscal Incentives

A recent report by former Government minister, Malcolm Wicks who is now the personal energy envoy to Gordon Brown makes clear the need for greater fiscal incentives to encourage long term exploration and production investment in the North Sea.

The Westminster government has been warned that without further incentives there is a very real risk that billions of barrels could be left “in situ” and unrecovered leading to shortfalls in financial contributions to the Treasury in the future.

These sentiments have long been echoed by Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce who have lobbied strongly in the past for special consideration to be given in the annual Budget to maximising and developing the remaining North Sea reserves.

These opinions were reinforced in the recent British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) submission to the UK Government as part of Westminster’s request for input into their fiscal policy review consultation process earlier in the year.

As a Chamber representing 1250 members we feel very encouraged that many of our recommendations for fiscal reforms made in the past to both the Scottish and UK parliaments have not only been validated but seen as worthy of mention in Malcolm Wicks’ report to the PM and HM Treasury.

This Chamber has long had a clear policy of supporting financial initiatives that can help anchor the future of the oil and gas sector in both Grampian and Scotland generally. Delegates at recent Chamber energy workshops and business breakfasts have voiced their concerns that a short term and inappropriate fiscal regime could have a seriously detrimental effect on the future competitiveness of the North Sea region.

Continued inward investment is crucial if UK companies are to be motivated to develop the new technologies that are necessary for the recovery of reserves from “hard to develop” fields in the future. A favourable tax regime would go a long way to making that happen.