Mr. Martin Robinson:

It is something that emerged in the last quarter. For the last period, as can be imagined, the cost of doing business dominated and overshadowed most other things for businesses North and South. Through our survey, we have noticed that, in a lot of the work we do, there is not any great difference between the attitudes or issues of businesses North and South. While costs dominated, it was interesting that, last quarter, costs are still there as the number one issue, but we see the influence diminishing a little bit over time and that emergence of competition came through. It is hard to base on just one quarter of data because that was based on quarter 3. As we speak, we are expecting our quarter 4 data to come forward, and we will analyse that in due course to see if that is a sustained trend and if there is something that we need to look to.

On the question of why that is the case, I think it is probably a reflection of the fact that businesses are fighting hard to maintain their positions and to grow their sales. Many of them are now at the stage where they have had to absorb lots of costs. While they have been able to pass some price increases on, I think it is fair to say they are seeing greater competition from competitors on the island and off the island. It is something we closely monitor.