The Latest News from Wrexham Business Professionals

Lowering taxes would help put Wales on path to prosperity

The right to lower corporation tax in Wales would be a major step on the road to prosperity, according to one of the world's top accountants. That was the message from Brian McEnery, the incoming global president of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), to a group of Wrexham's most influential business people. Mr McEnery, from Limerick in Ireland, also gave rare insight into the Irish banking crisis and the part he played in helping the country to resolve it. He was guest speaker at the annual Christmas gathering of Wrexham Business Professionals (WBP) at the Ramada Plaza. WBP, which is celebrating its sixth anniversary, is a group of highly skilled firms of solicitors, accountants and other businesses working together to raise the profile of the professional and business expertise that exists in the region and beyond. The glittering seasonal event, which attracted about 150 key figures from the local business community, heard details of what he called Ireland's financial "rollercoaster journey" from Mr McEnery. According to Mr McEnery, Wales could learn a great deal from the Irish experience. He said: "The way to attract business is by introducing innovative measures like low corporation tax and tax relief, allied to fast track business-friendly planning reforms to promote investment. "I am certain North Wales could benefit by following the example of the Irish Phoenix which has seen a six per cent growth in our economy over the past year." Mr McEnery is one of Ireland's leading business restructuring practitioners and from next year will head up the ACCA which has 178,000 members worldwide and staffed offices in 181 countries. In the aftermath of the banking crisis he was appointed to the board of Ireland's National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) and is also non-executive chairman of Ireland's health and social care regulator, the Health Information & Quality Authority (HIQA). Speaking about his role in the "bad bank", he said: "From 2001 the Irish economy was growing...... more ›