First 12 months marks strong start to Invest four year plan

By The Newsroom
Published 19th Jun 2018, 07:00 BST
Updated 19th Jun 2018, 16:56 BST
Invest NI chief executive Alastair Hamilton, left, pictured last week with Novosco managing director Patrick McAliskey for the announcement of 150 jobs - one of the biggest investment and job successes of the year so farInvest NI chief executive Alastair Hamilton, left, pictured last week with Novosco managing director Patrick McAliskey for the announcement of 150 jobs - one of the biggest investment and job successes of the year so far
Invest NI chief executive Alastair Hamilton, left, pictured last week with Novosco managing director Patrick McAliskey for the announcement of 150 jobs - one of the biggest investment and job successes of the year so far
Invest Northern Ireland chief executive Alastair Hamilton has hailed as 'exceptional' the performance of the agency on completion of year one of its current four-year plan.

Stating that the agency continued to see strong interest from companies looking to invest in the province, Mr Hamilton said the 23 businesses supported to invest here for the first time was one of the best performances of the past five years/.

At the same time he said the outInvest had in the of the supported 23 businesses to invest for the first time, one of our highest in the last five years.

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“An outturn of nearly 11,000 additional jobs within the first year is an exceptional result, and positions us one third of the way towards our four year outcome target,” he said.

“These are jobs that businesses have already created and two thirds of these are in companies located outside of Belfast.

“The figures also show we are half way towards the four year external sales outcome target.

“In addition, we have already reached the lower end of the export sales outcome target, with this group of companies reporting growth of export sales of £800m over the year (12%).”

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Following a “clear steer” given by the draft Programme for Government, he said the agency has moved to outcome based reporting, focusing on the wider impact of its work.

“Invest NI provides support and advice to businesses regardless of their size, location or stage of development.

“While moving to outcome based reporting is a shift for the organisation, and for our stakeholders who have become familiar with previous transactional based measures, it allows us to focus on impact not quantity,” he added.

“While this is great progress for one year into a four year strategy we are mindful that there remain real challenges ahead in light of Brexit and US policy changes. So while we are very encouraged by this year’s export outturn we will be continuing to review our support offering to ensure it helps businesses meet the new challenges ahead and will monitor export performance closely.

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“Continuing to attract investment is a key priority for us and over the next year we aim to build on our ability to attract international entrepreneurs as well as building on our successes in our key markets of the US and GB. Part of this strategy will include a relaunch of NI Connections, our diaspora programme, which helps provide a vital voice for Northern Ireland around the world.”

Related topics:GovernmentBelfastBrexitNorthern Ireland