guiding businesses through one of the most difficult periods in recent economic history.

Mr. Mowbray's two-year term as president ended two weeks ago at the Chamber's annual meeting.

He was replaced by his vice-president Mr. Bobby Rego, who has been chairman of the Chamber's sales division for the past three years.

And Mr. Rego hopes to continue the Chamber's tradition of teamwork during his two-year stint.

Bank of Bermuda senior vice-president Mr. Mowbray said he saw his term as a challenge and the two years have seen some major initiatives aimed at boosting business.

They have included Harbour Nights, the Christmas Shopping Festival and the campaign for a new cruise ship in St. George's.

Mr. Mowbray said: "It has been a challenge. When I took over we were in the middle of a deep and protracted recession.

"There was a lot of work to do to try and use the Chamber to stimulate local business activity.

"We introduced some things like the Christmas Shopping Festival in 1992, which continued last year. And there are the Harbour Nights.'' Mr. Mowbray said the new St. George's cruise ship Royal Majesty , which started to run from Boston a couple of weeks ago, was partly due to the work of the Chamber of Commerce and the Department of Tourism.

He said: "There was other work to get the numbers of cruise ship passengers up by introducing larger ships.'' Mr. Rego, chief executive of the Knick Knack, wants the Chamber of Commerce to be more team-orientated. He said: "I want to be more `hands on' and at the same time I think that everybody will be able to appreciate that we can lick these problems of our economic downturn if we work together.

"The main priority is retail sales. The Chamber has to be pro-active in providing sales now only to tourists but to locals too.'' He said the problems in the economy affected the whole community because of "drain-off effect'' which means businesses failing affecting employment figures and other auxiliary services which had served them.

Mr. Rego said: "Businesses have to look at differences in their operations.

Times have changed and consumers attitudes have changed.'' He praised Mr. Mowbray for the introduction of Harbour Nights which allow tourists to benefit from shopping in Bermuda after spending the day at the beach. He said: "Tourists are now enjoying all the benefits of the Island instead of finding that the stores had closed after they had been on the beach all day.'' Adding that Mr. Mowbray had taken the reins of the Chamber of Commerce at a difficult time, he added: "Hopefully I will be able to keep the momentum going.''