An Icelandic stockbroker who forecast the country’s financial ruin will be a guest speaker at an economic conference on small countries in the recession.

Iceland’s boom years saw it transformed move from an economy largely dependent on fishing to one of the richest in Europe.

But the credit crunch triggered the nationalisation of three of its commercial banks with the country effectively frozen out of foreign exchange markets.

Thoranna Jónsdóttir, from Audur Capital, whose consultants wrote to Iceland’s then prime minister in January 2008 warning that the country’s financial model was unsustainable, will speak at the event in the Europa Hotel on October 6, ‘how small countries deal with the downturn’.

Ms Jónsdóttir will discuss her own company’s performance and give her opinion on how small countries should respond to the recession.

Other speakers include Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster, the Republic’s European Minister Dick Roche TD, Treasury Committee member Sally Keeble MP, and Angela McGowan, chief economist at the Northern Bank.

Further details can be found at www.stratagemni.com or by contacting CBI NI on (028) 9010 1100.