As we begin this year's Week of Excellence, it is important to review some of the important events which have occurred since we last met together. Firstly, the winds of financial uncertainty continued to affect the international financial environment. It has spread from the US to Europe, to Asia and Latin America. No country has been unaffected.
This has been followed by an erosion of business confidence abroad and cost cutting measures, including lay offs, have followed. Secondly, as expected, with the weakness of the US and the UK in particular, the world slipped into a recession which has begun to affect some third world economies, including some in our own region.