This trend has inevitably presented challenges to all countries in different ways. Free trade regimes have had an impact on our traditional agricultural export commodities, such as bananas and sugar whose preferences are being gradually removed. In the financial arena, the proliferation of standards and codes, and the efforts of the OECD have had a negative impact on our embryonic Offshore Finance Sector.
The non-expensing of options being the most obvious, but others would include the use of special purpose vehicles and other off-balance sheet entities, the non-recognition of deficiencies in company-sponsored defined-benefit pension funds and the bringing forward of revenue recognition. In this country, we saw some very creative things being done with financial re-insurance, which basically had the aim of inflating recorded profits.