After becoming Finance Minister in 1998, Eugene Cox steered the Bermuda economy through some difficult times.

Under his watch there has been the continued decline in tourism, a global recession and stock market meltdown, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and a boom in the insurance industry ? all under a cloud of suspicion that as a labour government, the Progressive Labour Party would let the economy spin out of control.

But Mr. Cox?s steady hand, backed by the Ministry of Finance team and US economist Dr. Andrew Brimmer, has seen the economy grow and the international business sector continue to boom.

?We have done well, very well in fact,? he said in an interview with months before he became ill. ?They said we could not do it, but we have proved them wrong.?

During his tenure, Mr. Cox was criticised for not speaking to the public enough about what was happening in the Ministry, but during one of his last interviews, he defended his reticence and said the success of the Bermuda economy was a testament to the success of the PLP.

?Because I have not been singing from the rooftops and announcing and waving flags and what not, people just assume that nothing is being done, instead of seeing what really has been done,? he said.

And Mr. Cox spoke with pride about a long list of what he considered his achievements during his term as Finance Minister. He said revenue management and collection of money owed to Government topped his list of achievements, closely followed by zero-based budgeting which had been introduced into most Government sectors. ?It is very interesting when you have to go back and look at everything you have done,? said Mr. Cox, who said he believed that the PLP had done well with the economy and faced the challenges of its first term admirably.

?One of the things we said we were looking at was revenue management as opposed to spending,? he said. ?Going through the normal channels we would see the money flowing in (but the revenue) was not coming to the extent that it must.?

So he said that they introduced local collectors of cash and set about getting every department to look at their budgets to try to cut spending on nonessentials or throw out non-productive schemes. And he listed some of the many things that he was pleased with: ?Positive growth in the Bermuda economy over the past five years, despite a global recession and the devastating effects of September 11, world recognition of Bermuda?s role in the global captive and reinsurance markets: ?I mean look what happened after 9/11; people came and put about $12 billion dollars in Bermuda, just like that,? he told ?Certainly our regulations and ease of controlling have been perceived as good business management and people like the atmosphere as well as the small town likeness that Bermuda offers and the fact that they can get professional staff and do the job that they wanted to do. And we have had high credit ratings in each of our five years.?

Mr. Cox also pointed to significant improvements in financial management, rigorous and prudential management of public debt. ?No one says that as of March 31, 2003 the outstanding debt that was $126.3 million compared with $146 million that we had when we came in, he said. ?We really have been squeezing the debt down rather than increasing it.?

And he said Government moved the debt ceiling from $190 million or $200 million to $250 million in case of emergency, but had not needed to use the cash. ?It is there in case you need to, so you don?t have a hiccup when you are doing things. People take the view that you have gone and spent $250 million, which is not the case. It is raising the ceiling so that in the event if we have major emergencies or whatever, and that would take some doing, but you would have the process in place to use it. It is like having $1 million that Works and Engineering has as a contingency fund. So that if you have a storm and people need extra covers or roofs or any emergency, you can get to it without having to call the House into session to do it, you know, that kind of thing.?

And he said that he and his Ministry were kept busy with international diplomacy throughout the five years.

?There was the OECD and then we have gone before one or two other committees, including the IMF to look at what we were doing,? he said. ?Certainly, Bermuda has stood the test and we came away, certainly from the OECD, well, where they accepted the fact that Bermuda wasn?t one of those tax havens there to cream off the US dollars, rather that it was offering opportunities for people to do business in a climate that was well-regulated, had professional staff and that sort of thing.

?We have certainly been trying to modernise financial services legislation, we have tried spreading economic opportunity, in Bermuda I think the small businesses are benefiting I think from that opportunity as well as others.?

But he said that setting up the unemployment insurance was the last in a line of goals that he had set out for his office.