Inside the world of business

Thank you Price Andrew and bye

CONFIRMATION THAT Prince Andrew has stepped down from his awkward role as Britain’s roving trade ambassador prompted a “thank you” statement from Northern Ireland enterprise minister Arlene Foster.

“We are increasingly looking to export markets and the Duke of York has played his part in helping to promote Northern Ireland and Great Britain to international investors,” Ms Foster noted.

Let’s remind ourselves just how he went about doing that again. Clues emerged from last year’s Wikileaks dispatches.

An exceptionally drily funny cable from Washington’s ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Tatiana Gfoeller, documented how the prince’s behaviour at a business brunch in the capital of Bishkek involved speaking “cockily”, asserting that Americans “don’t understand geography – never have” and railing against the “idiocy” of a British anti-corruption investigation in Saudi Arabia.

All mildly embarrassing, but nothing compared to the storm that followed in March this year when details surfaced of his friendship with New York financier Jeffrey Epstein, who happens to be a convicted paedophile. The prince had stayed at Epstein’s home in Florida and flown with him in his private jet.

The second son of Queen Elizabeth was also criticised for having contacts with the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gadafy, Saif al-Islam.

It is worth remembering that despite being deprived of this special royal touch on matters business-related, IDA Ireland’s army of overseas envoys secured a 20 per cent jump in the value of foreign direct investment in the first half of 2011.

This was achieved without, presumably, insulting the geographical awareness of US officials or obliging business contacts to guffaw at xenophobia-laced jokes.

Eircom finally gets real on competition

EIRCOM YESTERDAY revealed a “wide ranging set of commercial reforms” at its wholesale division which is obliged to sell versions of its consumer services to its competitors on a commercial basis.

The former State telco says the group, under managing director of wholesale Chris Hutchings, has put in place a raft of measures to provide “greater transparency” to rival operators.

That’s quite a cultural change for a firm that has fought regulator ComReg at every turn over the last decade when it tried to get a better deal for telcos who don’t have the benefit of Eircom’s national network.

Alto, which represents the alternative operators, gave the move a cautious welcome.

A BT spokeswomen pointed out the move comes 10 years after telecoms deregulation and is an admission that “ a level playing field does not exist in this market today”.

The stance is perfectly understandable but as politicians love reminding us, we are where we are. Eircom’s latest owners – a branch of the Singapore sovereign wealth fund – has yet to dig into its pockets to sort out Eircom’s debt problems.

But either the new owners, or chief executive Paul Donovan, seem to have decided a more pragmatic approach to competition is required. It is long overdue.

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