Telegraph: Brown moves to boost City's role on world stage

17 October 2006




The Chancellor is to launch a concerted push to boost the role and profile of the City of London on the international stage and as a vital part of the British economy at a meeting with high-level City figures tomorrow. Gordon Brown will ask assembled grandees including Merrill Lynch's Bob Wigley and Lloyds' of London's Lord Levene to work with the Treasury and other government departments to ensure London is seen as a the place to do business in the global economy. The rallying call will come at the first meeting of the Chancellor's 'High Level Group on Financial Services'.

The all-day meeting, to be held behind closed doors, will take place at Number 11, Downing Street, and will see 32 invited high-profile guests from across the Square Mile attending.

Mr Brown is keen to reinforce his interest in the City given a spate of negative incidents including the suggestion HSBC might move offshore to avoid corporation tax. He is also keen to steal a march on the Conservatives, who, under David Cameron, have managed to revive support in City circles in recent months.

It is understood the Chancellor and his high-level team – including James Sassoon, the former banker turned the Chancellor's 'special missionary' to the City – will highlight at least two key areas in which they feel the Square Mile can be improved and expanded.

The two areas are understood to be regulation and infrastructure, and there are likely to be presentations on both.

Regulation is understood to be a hot topic on the list of many on the guest list, in particular the potential impact consolidating stock exchanges could have on London, as well as the aggressive stance Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, is taking on behalf of American financial institutions.

Infrastructure will be also a key talking point, with listed discussion points including Crossrail, and the possibilities of heliports for both the City and Canary Wharf. In an early sop, City minister Ed Balls will tomorrow announce plans to remove the tax barrier in the Offshore Funds Tax Regime, a tax-neutral move which will benefit offshore fund of fund structures.

One of the key presentations of the day will come from Andrew Cahn, the chief executive of UK Trade and Investment.

Mr Cahn is likely to focus on a need to work together with other bodies, of ways of setting up missions with ministers and business leaders to foreign countries to promote London, and to put new commercial people in China and India.

Other high-profile guests at the event will include: Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London; David Brewer, the Lord Mayor; Lord David Currie, the Dean of Cass Business School; J P Morgan's Sir Andrew Crockett and Michael Snyder, the chairman of the City of London's Policy Committee.
By James Quinn

© Daily Telegraph