For quite some time we have been predicting – with increasing urgency – the necessity for the Cayman Islands economy to evolve beyond its traditional financial services business based on our so-called tax haven status.

Our opinion in this respect seems to have been largely ignored – as always – and it was, therefore, somewhat startling to us to see the exact same thing being voiced by no less a person than the British Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in charge of the Overseas Territories at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Chris Bryant, in a recent letter to the Leader of Government Business, Hon. McKeeva Bush.

Specifically, Mr Bryant said, “It would be unwise, I suspect … to expect that the Cayman Islands’ prosperity can presume on an offshore tax haven status.”

This week, the Guardian newspaper in Britain took up a similar theme in an analysis piece entitled “The end of the tax-haven era”.

The article in question discusses how the global economic crisis has triggered a significant development in international laws on tax evasion.

“It seems almost unbelievable, but the era of banking secrecy for tax purposes will soon be over. In tomorrow’s world, there will be no more havens in which to hide funds from the taxman,” the article says.

This new world order is due to be discussed at length at a meeting of the OECD’s global forum on transparency and exchange of information in Mexico, this week, when representatives of almost 100 governments will attempt to lay the foundations for a system designed to ensure that all countries and jurisdictions live up to their commitments.

As the Guardian points out, it will take time for the proposed structures to become fully effective. Deeply ingrained attitudes need to change and well-established practices will need to be revised.

The immediate questions for the Cayman Islands are to what extent are those deeply ingrained attitudes changing and the well-established practices being revised.

The historic tendency towards denial, or at least a failure to realise that the world was changing does not auger well for this process and, assuming that the government, together with the financial services sector, now understand the new facts of life, this is an issue that must be tackled now, in a process probably comprising both legislation and education.

The much-vaunted underpinning of our banking secrecy in the “good old days” was the Confidential Relationships (Preservation) Law. It seems to us that it has not only outlived its usefulness but has become an albatross around the national neck.

How can we justifiably claim to be moving away from a status and reputation as a “secrecy jurisdiction” into a new era of global financial transparency when we still have the Confidential Relationships Law on the books?

Certain elements of the financial sector seemed to understand this and made representations to the previous administration, who responded that the issue needed more study – a convenient way of not having to deal with it.

Perhaps this week’s meeting in Mexico will light a fire under the new government when this issue will surely be a factor in the peer review of actual compliance by the Cayman Islands and other countries with the information exchange agreements entered into.

In the meantime, strenuous efforts should be underway to identify and develop sustainable sources of revenue that do not rely on the tax haven type of business.

We have suggested some possibilities in recent months; similar if not identical suggestions have come out of the recent financial “summit”; and we have reported others made by at least one candidate in the May general election.

Again, such suggestions have hitherto fallen on deaf ears in the past but, hopefully, the new economic realities will cause the powers that be to listen and start to take urgent and constructive steps in the right direction.

When all is said and done, the Cayman Islands still has an impressive legal, accounting and financial infrastructure, despite the persistence of the last government in trying to drive away the talented professionals we must have to compete and survive.

At the very least we need to preserve and utilise this national resource in constructive and sustainable ways instead of allowing it to dissipate or be used in misguided attempts to preserve the unpreservable.