"Good morning ladies and gentlemen
It gives me a great pleasure to follow on from Mervyn, Michelle, Nelson and Robin and conclude on this section of the conference Developing our economy.
I would like to start of by giving credit to my colleague Nigel Dodds for the good work that he started when he had responsibility for enterprise, trade and investment. Under his stewardship we seen the economy being placed as centre of the programme for government, seen an extremely successful investment conference with business leaders from all over the world come to Northern Ireland and seen unemployment in Northern Ireland fall to record low levels- not sure what really has gone wrong over the last number of months- I just wonder at times if Nigel wants his old job back????
Ladies and Gentlemen - there is no doubt that the economy throughout the world if facing turbulent times- what has started of as a credit crunch with people tightening their belts has moved into all types of businesses with credit getting more difficult to receive- investors delaying making decisions, businesses waiting longer to receive money for their goods whilst at the same time the price of goods being placed under pressure. This week I spent time with leading businesses in America both in Boston and the Silicon Valley- the most optimistic of which described the current situation as an economic moment whilst the most pessimistic described it as a economic tornado. The pressures facing businesses in Northern Ireland are identical to those throughout the UK, America, India and China- what the economy is going through is not a Northern Ireland or UK problem- it is a global problem.
There is no doubt that our construction and manufacturing sector in Northern Ireland is particularly hard hit at this moment - houses are not being built and machines are not being sold and as a result people in the construction and manufacturing industry are being laid off. We as an Executive need to be doing what we can to help these sectors get work and survive- where possible we need to be looking at the Investment Strategy and speeding up key investment projects.
Through my role as economy Minister I am taking steps to help Northern Ireland companies with the current economic climate-
Invest NI has already set up an numbers of credit crunch seminars to help Northern Ireland businesses- these are being followed up with one to one meetings. I would urge businesses here today to avail of this service and take up the offer from Invest.
We are also running a number of trade missions to help Northern Ireland companies get into the export market. This week I joined some of out high-tech companies to a trade mission to the silicon valley. Over the coming months there are other trade missions planned for Holland and India.
In the current economic climate doing nothing is simply not an option. This is a time to keep cool heads and keep on the path that we are going. As I said earlier this week this is not the time to baton down the hatches. It is vital that we continue out strategy of helping to create new businesses, help more of our indigenous companies to get into the export markets and help to attract more new companies to come to Northern Ireland and bring with them high value good quality jobs.
Over the coming months I am going to re-launch the ‘start a business programme’. It is however vital that we also help our indigenous companies to ensure that we identify those companies with export potential and work with them to ensure that they can’t quickly grow and become clients of Invest NI. We are a country renowned for its creativity an innovation. Let us work together to ensure that we can capitalise on our talents and become world leaders.
Despite the current economic climate, having been in North America this week I am more convinced than ever that Northern Ireland is an ideal location to do business not only if you are a small business start-up, an indigenous SME or if you are a large company coming to Northern Ireland to invest for the first time.
Since the restoration of devolution we have already had a large number of companies either reinvest in NI or come to invest in NI for the first time.
In July of this year Bombardier announced that they are investing £500 million in connection to the c-series- the largest ever investment in Northern Ireland.
In May Cybersource announced that it is opening a research and development centre creating over 50 high quality well paid jobs
BTI systems have announced the creation of a software engineering support research and development centre.
Wombat Financial Services, who were recently bought over by the New York Stock Exchange announced a further expansion.
Citi has recently announced an expansion of its Belfast Centre of excellence.
Liberty IT has announced an expansion to its Belfast operation.
3Par recently announced that it was coming to set up an R and D centre in Northern Ireland
and this week I signed a deal with Bytemobile who are coming to Northern Ireland to set up a technical support centre with an average salary of £42,000
And it is certainly not just foreign direct investment that we are working for - although obviously that is important. Those of you who know me well know that I am always first and foremost a Fermanagh girl - yes I did use the word girl I thought it would be safer than wife and mother although for the record I enjoy both those roles as well!!!
Indigenous industries and companies are key to the future of the Northern Ireland. In the West of this great country of ours when the multi nationals left in the late 80s and early 90s it was the local entrepreneurs who were left to carry the burden. Again in these difficult days I want to support these firms and that is why we have had the credit crunch seminars helping firms to deal with issues now instead of waiting until issues got out of hand; also I have allocated 4.9 million to the Carbon Trust to help firms of whatever size deal with their energy efficiency - as we all know energy costs have been increasing and this is particularly true for businesses.
Ladies and Gentlemen- because we are off the community we understand and I understand the pressures which face companies on a day to day basis. I have regular meetings with businesses be it individually or through representative organisations. We want to and will help the devolved administration is working for the economy and if working for the people of Northern Ireland- we must continue with the good work that has started.
So what makes Northern Ireland an attractive place to do business-
Earlier this week at a meeting with Cybersource - the 5th fastest growing company in America- the senior management team commented that Northern Ireland under promised and over delivered - their words not mine.
Company after company stated that we had many attributes that attracted them to invest in Northern Ireland-
We had a young workforce that was highly skilled and motivated.
We were putting in place necessary modern infrastructure needed to support businesses at an affordable rate.
We were in a location which acted as a gateway to Europe and in a timezone which helped link America to the far East.
We had links to research and development and strong links between our businesses and colleges.
There is no doubt that in high value sector Northern Ireland can compete with anywhere in the world including India and China.
CEO’s from American companies complained that India was no longer a cheap region to get good labour, their work ethics were generally poor, the culture of the country caused difficulties and the time-zone resulted in problems with doing business between India and America. Do not get me wrong- there are times when regions like India will out-compete Northern Ireland but there are other times when we can either collaborate with regions like India (as we have done with First Source Solutions) or out-compete them.
Delegates we as DUP ministers know that to get the best from our economy we must work cross departmentally and strategically. We need to look at areas that can give Northern Ireland businesses a competitive advantage whether that is development in green energy, development of key skills or strategic infrastructural investment.
We have heard from speakers about the need to sort out our education and skills needs and to do so as early as possible. We must take what is best about our education system and reform what needs to be reformed. We must match up the skills that are needed by our investors with what is delivered by our higher education colleges and universities. Matching supply and demand is not rocket science but we must put this policy into practice in our schools, and educational establishments.
We have a good story to tell Northern Ireland. I feel very comfortable and confident selling our strengths at home and abroad. So in these difficult times let's have confidence, let’s lift our eyes and let's do it."
