Cayman Islands financial sector supports review of immigration term limits
Tuesday September 20 2011 | 06:54 AM

Richard Coles, the chairman of Cayman Finance, the association that represents the Cayman Islands financial services industry, has expressed support for the government’s recently announced intention to suspend the immigration term limits or “rollover” policy for two years to enable a review of the impact of the seven year limit, while preventing any potential negative impacts on the economy in the short term.

“The government’s announced intention sounds reasonable as it will enable the government to review the impact of the policy which we believe is now overdue, and it makes good economic sense to allow persons who may be imminently facing rollover to avoid being negatively impacted in the meantime,” Coles said.

He added that, while there are firms in the financial services industry who believe that the policy has increased the cost of recruitment and training, among other issues, the idea of assessing the impact first is the right approach. This will allow the government to objectively assess how the policy would be amended or whether it should indeed be removed. 

He also felt strongly that the financial services sector has generally been extremely responsible in terms of the recruitment and training of Caymanians.

“In my opinion, the financial services industry has generally been extremely supportive of the recruitment and training of Caymanians, which can be seen by the number of Caymanians employed by the industry and the number of Caymanians in senior positions. Of course, improvements can and should always be made, but I feel that there are many firms in the industry that can be considered role models in that regard,” Coles added.

Premier McKeeva Bush announced that Cayman Finance would form part of a review committee to review the policy and Coles said that the organization was looking forward to participating in the review, which is slated to be completed within a six month period.