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It is time for Bermuda to take a hard look at the strictures which are placed on local business. It seems to us that in Bermuda we often complain about the way businesses function and whether or not they can compete but at the same time we place hobbles on them. We constantly talk these days about Bermuda and its businesses competing with the rest of the world and that is true yet we ask them to compete with their hands and feet tied.

Look at our retail sector as an example. Its basic competitiion is now the malls of America and customers ask our businesses to compete with US prices and complain if they do not. Yet, with some exceptions, we charge them taxes in the form of import duties on the goods they sell and we control the quality of the people they can hire to promote and sell those goods. We do this while knowing that retailers operate in a much higher wage area than their United States competitors and pay far higher costs for such things as electricity.

Many retailers have not shown significant returns for nearly ten years now despite concerted reorganisation and efforts to sell at suggested US retail prices. We hobble these businesses knowing that a varied retail sector is a vital element in our tourist industry. Hotels are no better off.

Then too, many businesses, especially in the service sector, can only be as good as the people they can employ. Yet we subject local business to delays and hassles over work permits which we do not inflict with the same severity on the international businers sector. Then we say that our international businesses are well run and local businesses are not.

The local banks which now obviously compete with overseas banks must undergo a staffing nightmare. Overseas banks are free to pick and choose the best people for the job but Bermuda's banks are not. In many local businesses the Immigration procedure often results in hiring two people to get a job done, one local to satisfy Immigration and one on a work permit to do the job. As long as profitability is high that can be sustained but often these days profitability is down because Bermuda's costs exceed the costs of its overseas competition. Restricting businesses in this way stunts their growth and denies Bermuda the jobs which business growth provides.

We charge local manufacturers duty on their machinery and on the materials they use to produce their goods yet we often allow the import of competing products duty free. The local manufacturer supplies jobs and supports the local economy at costs much higher than the foreign manufacturer. That makes little sense except to the tax man.

The result is that the local sector shrinks and as it shrinks so jobs begin to disappear. Most countries do the exact opposite. They encourage and protect local business to grow the local economy.

Successful businesses create jobs in a natural way but if they are hobbled and cannot expand or begin to fail, so they decrease their employees. There are signs today of exactly that happening to many of Bermuda's businesses and there may come a time when Bermuda will simply be a market for US businesses.

That will create employment for Americans but where are Bermudians going to get the money they now spend abroad?