So yesterday we finally got to read further details of Alf Cannan's ambitious, wide-reaching, IOM Economic Strategy and we got an unnerving sense of deja vu from around the turn of the last Century with much of it. In fact it certainly feels like we have been here before more than once in the last few decades.
At the heart of the new strategy though is a detailed 147 page report from KPMG which can be found here:
This KPMG document provides both a detailed strategic overview and a framework to assess the progress of a range of initiatives which should help the IOM both diversify and grow its economy. We're not going to start tearing the document apart as its a fairly robust piece of work sometimes stating the obvious and sometimes making the case for a variety of new tweeks and initiatives (some of which might be controversial such as cannabis based tourism) that they believe need to be delivered in order to unlock the full potential of the IOM in the post pandemic world. We provide a link above as we'd encourage anyone to read it through and make their own mind up from their own personal perspective and not read the often misleading 44 page IOM Government summary document which is usually all you can find in a quick Google search.
That said we do draw readers attention to Page 26 which states - without any government intervention in the form of the implementation of the Strategic Economic Framework and the supporting package of measures there are considerable uncertainties about the future outlook of the economy, driven by the many challenges and threats facing the Island. Which suggests the report writers already know where this strategy document could be heading. On that basis we'd also encourage readers to familiarise themselves with Pages 43 to 45 which document the do nothing scenario which is what we all know we'll actually be getting after all the flag waving.
We are however going to make some additional comments covering the following main topic areas and also suggest some additional matters that we think KPMG might have overlooked.
Population
The stated aim here is to grow the population to 100,000 people by 2037 driven by inward migration and the retention of active people and the recruitment of key workers. Strangely though despite wanting 15,000 people to come here by 2037 we seem to be looking to only create 5,000 new jobs by 2032 so we ask how is that going to work if we only want economically active people to move here? Our assumption is that key workers will at some stage morph into even more public sector workers who might be drafted in to scale-up our key infrastructure for a wave of new residents who don't actually materialise.
Shape of the economy
The stated aim here is to reach a GDP of £10BN by 2032 (current GDP is around £5.5BN) across existing sectors and new sectors with 5,000 new jobs to be filled. A £1BN Economic Strategy Fund is also proposed with £100M already allocated to help stimulate the economic shift and develop supporting initiatives so Freemasons and those with close familial links to key government officials certainly won't be missing out on the free money.
The new sectors identified in the report are - Green, Data & Knowledge. The existing growth sectors are highlighted as - Digital, Financial Services, Producing & Visitor. So if you don't work in any of those sectors currently you might want to start re-training now if you have more than 5 years to retirement (or to being economically unproductive as Mr Cannan seems to prefer).
Public finances
The stated aim is to generate an additional £200M of annual income to reinvest into services and improve quality of life for all residents. This is interesting given the ambition to grow total GDP by so much in proportion. So are we being led to believe that 5,000 new jobs will create an extra £200M in taxable revenue PA and nearly £5BN in additional GDP? But of course there is a big VAT multiplier hidden somewhere in there.
Sustainability
We are going to hear a lot of mention of this word. The declared aim here is to decarbonise the services parts of the economy by 2030 supporting an overall reduction of 35% in the IOMs Greehouse Gas emissions. So you can safely bet on a bucket load of middle class grant subsidies on anything from brand new £50K EV's to epic eco-focussed home renovations and a huge investment of our money into governments own infrastructure to reduce governments carbon footprint while Crogga probably gleefully pumps huge mounts of natural gas out of our offshore gas field and flogs it to the UK!
The F & L perspective
As we've said its a robust paper written from a completely independent perspective which also challenges IOM Government to actually do something this time as well as providing a framework to allow the actions and initiatives to be tracked so that progress by Government can be monitored. That said we feel its overlooked some of our natural strengths which we feel could be leveraged by the IOM more. Such as ..
Visitor - Public sector land
We have a government that we simply can't afford that encroaches on almost every aspect of our lives over regulating things, making things more difficult than they need to be, and generally employing legions of non-jobbers to pointlessly stick their noses into everything. To meet the intended 500,000 annual visitors we are looking for KPMGs cannabis tourism proposal makes a lot of sense - but equally we could choose to leverage our position as a pen pushing utopia to make the IOM the go-to location for global pen pushers.
Here we propose the building of a glum civil service themed theme park where pen pushers from all over the world could come and boost our visitor economy. Imagine a TT sized festival just for civil servants where they would pay to come to the IOM to run the trams, or the steam trains or the bus network or the health service for free for two weeks each year? Ian Longworth and his chums alone would probably buy a timeshare. We think this could be bigger than the TT in time driven by some of the most affluent, recession proof, tax-grabbing consumer incomes we'll ever see.
Data - Russian troll farms
Here we propose handing over most of Andreas to create a vast campus for tax-free Russian Twitter trolls where thousands of workers could happily ply their trade in a tax advantaged manner as well as manipulating global events and producing subliminal positive messaging for IOM Government. An additional 15,000 economically active new residents could certainly be possible here together with the registration of 10,000,000 new IOM Twitter accounts.
Population - Digital So-Sads
The global pandemic has created a generation of people who no longer want to go anywhere or do anything. Imagine being in this category and moving to the IOM where you can't even leave the house as you can't work out from Facebook if the buses are working today or not. Or where you get to the airport and your one and only flight to civilisation has been cancelled at the last minute for the third day in a row? Or where nobody can find a bus or a taxi to come and visit you? You'd probably be totally ecstatic. Therefore we feel that there is considerable scope to turn most of Lower Foxdale into a vast lodge park for Digital So-Sad's who would pay to move to the IOM to achieve the ultimate in social exclusion.
Population - offshore asylum clearing
The IOM is a lot nearer than Rwanda and in the post Brexit world the demand for extensive offshore asylum clearing will only be going one way. Here we could bring thousands of temporary tourists to the IOM to boost our visitor economy numbers paid for by the UK Government. We did it very effectively in WW1 and WW2 so we should have a fairly credible business proposition to put to Liz Truss or whichever Nazi wins the Conservative Leadership race. We suggest Rob Callister is left to run with this if he genuinely believes that 500,000 IOM visitors in one season is achievable.
Sustainability - anything
In our brave new world sustainability will be the key word for anything and the door opener for everything. In fact everything will claim to become more sustainable except for IOM Government itself which will incrementally become even more unsustainable the more money it wastes on big budget sustainability-washed initiatives. Just drop the word sustainable on any form or application and the magic money will just keep on churning out into your bank account. Sustainability grants will be the covid-loans of 2022 and beyond.
