5 minute read
CEO Update
Chamber Chief’s UPDATE
During such an uncertain period, NI Chamber is committed to helping you and your business deal with the current situation and the challenges ahead. NI Chamber Chief Executive Ann McGregor provides an overview of what’s coming up and what’s taken place recently.
With businesses facing an array of ongoing challenges, NI Chamber has been working hard on behalf of members, articulating your experiences and seeking urgent solutions.
Last month I attended a meeting about the Protocol with CDL, Michael Gove and European Commission Vice President, Maros Sefcovic. That was a very significant engagement, where along with other business colleagues, I highlighted that business requires a number of things.
Businesses need stability to allow them to adapt to the changes and challenges of the Protocol. That means an extension to the grace periods to allow them to continue to adapt. A stable trading environment needs certainty, in the form of a long term workable solution that is done with business, not to it. We need the EU and the UK Government to work with technical experts to design a system that works for business and the people of Northern Ireland. That includes issues such as the island of Ireland economy and quotas.
Utilising digitisation will lead to much needed simplicity, delivering a simpler Trusted Trader agreement and a veterinary agreement to remove frictions. This needs to be proportionate to the low level of risk of UK retail goods coming into Northern and going onto the single market, due to the dead-end-host principle. All of this must be done will the least disruption possible to communities in Northern Ireland. Affordability is therefore critical. The costs of new processes must be kept to a minimum to allow us to continue to give households the choice and affordability they need.
And of course we need a way to communicate our concerns, challenges and solutions to the EU and UK. I am pleased that we secured agreement to set up a business consultative body with NI Chamber as one of the members.
February also saw continued interaction with local elected representatives, including
First Minister Arlene Foster and Junior
Minister Declan Kearney, who were briefed on our recently published policy document, ‘Thrive’. Similarly, Justice Minister Naomi Long also met members of our Board and Policy team to discuss those policy priorities. In addition, members also had the opportunity to speak directly with Interim Head of the Civil Service, Jenny Pyper.
We continue to engage strongly with policy makers in Westminster too. Recently a group of members had the opportunity to meet with Secretary of State for Business,
Energy and Industrial Strategy, Kwasi
Kwarteng MP at an event supported by SSE Airtricity, while another group spoke with UK Net Zero Champion Andrew Griffith at an Energy Forum, delivered alongside SONI.
In mid-February, we released the results of our latest COVID-19 survey, which provided some of the clearest evidence yet that business support schemes, including
furlough, must be extended beyond April. One third of NI business have less than six months left before they run out of cash and 40% say they would make staff redundant if schemes ended in March / April.
Businesses will therefore broadly welcome many aspects of the Chancellor’s recent Budget, in particular the extension of the furlough scheme, which provides relief for firms facing enormous cash-flow pressures as a result of the pandemic. The introduction of new incentives for business investment are also very welcome, as is some additional funding for the region. It is disappointing however, that within his Budget statement, the Chancellor made scant other specific reference to Northern Ireland. Businesses here face a set of unique challenges post EU exit and there was no indication of any support measures to help them cope with this.
While our engagement with policy makers is certainly at an all-time high, there has been no let-up in the delivery of other services to our members either. NI Chamber’s International Division has been providing a huge amount of training and technical support to help businesses get to grips with the practicalities of new trading arrangements. The team have made themselves available for one-to-one Customs Clinics for any members involved in the import or export of goods and there was a great response to that. We also hosted a Collaborative Forum to recap on what changes from 1 January mean for business and look ahead to the future of trade, as well as a seminar with Cleaver Fulton Rankin, looking at the business implications of the new immigration system. This is in addition to our busy timetable of training on Incoterms, Customs Declarations and the NI Protocol. Demand for that training continues to be very high and we will be hosting more sessions in the coming weeks.
At NI Chamber, we continue to innovate too and we were really pleased to launch a new podcast series, where high performing CEOs and Executive Business leaders share the secrets of their career success. Delivered in partnership with Narratology, ‘In Conversation’ is hosted by former BBC Journalist Mark Devenport. The first two episodes feature fascinating discussions with Dr Dennise Broderick, MD and President of Galen and Richard Kennedy, Chief Executive, Devenish Nutrition, so if you haven’t tuned in yet, make time to have a listen.
These are really challenging times for businesses across all sectors, but there is a really strong support system out there and NI Chamber is central to that. If we can help your business, all members have to do is ask. Please stay in touch, get involved in as much as you can and remember that we are here to help.
