Before an invited audience comprising local business and finance leaders, Tony Brown MHK responded to questions from Manx Radio broadcaster Stuart Peters on current issues such as the restructuring of Government, the reciprocal health agreement and the security of the Island’s ‘Zero Ten’ corporate tax regime.

Opening the discussion, the Chief Minister explained that he had conceived the event in order to communicate more openly and fully with the Island’s business and wider communities.

Despite the prevailing mood, reinforced by the media, that the Isle of Man is going through a time of unprecedented adversity, there is, he explained, “so much going on that is positive”.

Mr Peters’ subsequent questions focused on the weightier political and economic challenges currently facing the Isle of Man Government.

These included: the restructuring of Government and centralization of certain aspects of the civil service; the importance of attracting new business to the Isle of Man; the implications of Manx independence; and how the UK’s decision to rescind the reciprocal health agreement has impacted on the Isle of Man.

While acknowledging the Island’s vulnerabilities, particularly in the wake of the VAT share crisis and in the wider context of the global recession, Mr Brown was also keen to emphasise its strengths and position of relative financial security.

He said that it was not in the interests of the UK Government to scrap the VAT share agreement completely, pointing to the millions of pounds which the Island channels into the UK economy.

Taking questions from the floor, he also said that he believed it was unlikely that the days of Zero Ten corporate tax were numbered.

Defiantly upbeat, the Chief Minister highlighted the investments the Isle of Man Government has made in the Island’s infrastructure in the last decade (“without borrowing”) and that their simultaneous building of reserves, a large portion of which have since been used to ease the pain of the VAT crisis, showed prudence and foresight.