Our Constitution acknowledges the pivotal role of employers’ associations. Article 7 of the Preliminary Title recognises their role (along with the trade unions) as organisations key to the defence and promotion of economic and social interests, a point further bolstered in Article 22 and in the freedom of association it advocates. Our Constitution also details specific requirements in respect of the internal structure of employers’ associations, their ends and their functioning. It is emphatically important that employers’ associations should be exemplary institutions, both for society and for their associates. Among their obligations is, of course, to ensure this exemplary role, which includes defending the common good, good corporate governance and, in all instances, strict compliance with the law. Fomento has always been open to collaboration with other employers’ organisations. Notable proof of this, in the none-too-distant past, was its participation and drive, at the onset of the democratic transition some 40 years ago, to reconstruct the Spanish employers’ association framework with the creation of the Confederación Española de Organizaciones Empresariales (CEOE – the Spanish Confederation of Employers’ Organisations) and its participation in and contributions to the pursuit of the attendant activities. The first president of the CEOE, Carlos Ferrer Salat, was from Fomento, as was indeed the current president, Joan Rossel. The international economic and financial crisis The year 2017, which has recently begun, will mark 10 years since the first episodes of the crisis from which the global economy is still recovering.

Margaret Thatcher swept into office in 1979, bringing with her a strongly held and clear political philosophy: to reduce the role of the state in the economy and rid the country of its "wasting disease". Thatcher embraced the free-market views of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. She resolved to break the monopoly of nationalised industries and curb the oppressive power of the trade unions. She revamped policies, cut back the role of government and the extent of the welfare state, and privatised inefficient public enterprises. She confronted the unions and defeated them, notably in a prolonged miners' strike. In short, she succeeded in changing the prevailing economic paradigm from a socialist welfare state to a much more laissez-faire system. Thatcher had to tackle strong vested interests, and could only reshape Britain's economy and society with the support of the people. This was by no means an easy task after three decades of heavy state welfarism. Yet she won four successive elections and, with them, the mandate to make fundamental changes to the country. Her reforms outlasted her - even the Labour Party, to be elected, had to reinvent itself as New Labour and espouse policies not so different from what the Conservatives stood for. The remaking of Singapore Singapore too has had to remake itself to get to where we are today. Since independence, we have always been on the move, adapting to an ever-changing environment. Being a small and open economy, we are constantly subject to the vagaries of the external environment.