Global Financial Centres Index: New York,
London, Hong Kong and Singapore remain the top four global financial centres.
New York is now slightly leading London and has been overtaken in the index,
mainly due to London falling (it is the largest faller in the top 50 centres).
Dublin's IFSC slips to 66 of 83 cities -- down 10 ranks in the biannual
survey of financial services professionals. The Irish capital is ranked at 19 of
the top 20 European centres.
The leading Asian Centres pull away from the
weaker with Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul and doing significantly better
than the weaker centres (e.g. Kuala Lumpur (35), Manila, Jakarta and Mumbai).
Middle East centres continue to rise in the
index. Qatar remains the leading Middle Eastern Centre just ahead of Dubai.
Riyadh is up 16 places, Bahrain is up 12 places and Abu Dhabi is up 10 places.
Financial centres in Europe are still in turmoil.
23 of the 27 European centres in the GFCI declined by rank. Significant
falls include Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Dublin, Madrid, Lisbon, and Rome. Athens in
last place (83rd) is now 82 points adrift of Reykjavik, second to last.
The survey was launched in 2007 and for the
latest index, it polled 3,246 respondents. It then combined their assessments of
the changing competitiveness of financial centres with a ranking of objective
factors such as infrastructure, the availability of skilled staff and access to
international markets.
Report [pdf]
Dublin is just ahead of Malta
and Manila and its 66th rank compares with 15 in March 2007, 13 in September
2008, and 23 in September 2009.
In May 2010,
John Bruton, former taoiseach, became
chairman of the newly-formed financial services body, IFSC Ireland, to promote
Dublin's offshore centre overseas.
It has of course been a hard sell to promote
Dublin during an international bailout. Nevertheless, someone with industry
experience maybe better at charming the moneymen than a retired politician.
The International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) likely also needs a retooling
for different times.
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