Invest NI, in conjunction with company investments, are going to be ploughing over half a billion pounds into the Northern Irish economy over the next few years. This money will be going towards supporting companies in various ways, such as helping to develop new products, invest in energy and resource efficient technologies, improve skills, create jobs and export to new markets. The hope is that this financial aid will help these companies to thrive and grow in future years.
Working With Local Entrepreneurs Up To Multi-Nationals
Over 90% of this funding will go towards locally owned businesses which is exactly what is needed to get the NI economy really motoring. Speaking about this investment in an article in the Belfast Newsletter, Kieran Donoghue, CEO of Invest NI, said:
“Every day, we work with businesses, from local entrepreneurs starting their journey to multi-nationals making large-scale investments. Regardless of the company’s size or stage of development we provide high-quality services, programmes, support, and expert advice.
“In 2023/24 our financial assistance included over 1,400 offers to companies alongside 145 investments and loans provided through our suite of Access to Finance funds.
“Combined, this support equates to £93m of assistance to businesses to help them with their growth plans. Both our support, and the companies’ investments will deliver over half a billion of investment in the Northern Ireland economy.
“Around 40% of our work with businesses is practical advice, guidance, and sharing technical knowledge, not financial assistance. For example, our free business resource had 2.6million visits in 2023/24, providing businesses access to information guides and factsheets.
“The impact of our work is measured through our Key Performance Indicators, which track movement in sales, exports and employment amongst a portfolio of our client companies.
“Our 2023 KPI data showed really strong growth in Sales, External Sales and Exports amongst the portfolio of companies. All three metrics increased by at least 5% on 2022 figures. Employment across the consistent group of businesses grew by 2%.
“We continue to look for new markets for Northern Ireland companies to explore and in March led a very successful Net Zero exchange visit to Malaysia and Singapore to showcase Northern Ireland as a key player in the Green Economy. We also helped 129 companies export for the first time and 403 clients to expand into new markets.”
Mission To Accelerate Growth
He added: “We have a clear mission: to work with businesses to accelerate their growth by increasing external sales and innovation, creating good quality jobs, boosting productivity and skills, growing inward investment and reducing carbon emissions.
“Later this year we will publish a new three-year business strategy which will set out how we plan to build on this and previous years’ success to deliver this mission and realise a more balanced, sustainable, productive, and prosperous economy.”
Growing the economy is definitely the key to a more prosperous Northern Ireland.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.