NW Business Leaders Welcome INI Report

Chamber President Jim Sammon has led a united welcome for the recently launched review of Economic Policy in Northern Ireland.

Jim Sammon said,

"I commend the Minister for establishing this review which is direct response to concerns expressed by business organizations such as ours. We welcome in particular the emphasis on Innovation and R&D. The focus on higher value added jobs for the people of Northern Ireland is entirely the right way to approach economic policy and fits very well with the emerging outcomes from the city's regeneration plans."

Business leaders also agree with the recommendation that INI and DETI should become more flexible in how support is provided and hope that this move away from programme and compliance based support to a much more entrepreneurial and less risk averse approach can be speedily introduced. The Chamber in Derry are particularly pleased that this has been addressed in the report given their input which said,

"A considerable amount of our feedback from members centered on the high levels of bureaucracy, slow response times to queries and perceived disincentive to business to take any level of risk. Some smaller member companies who had previously been served by the LEDU suggest that Invest N I is much less flexible in it's approach with much less delegated authority to client managers."

The Chamber President continued,

"The focus on supply chain integration for smaller companies will be extremely important for our members and support in developing strong export markets is also of critical importance.The realignment of the education system, proposed merger of DEL and DETI and giving the next ISNI greater economic focus are all recommendations to be welcomed."

However not all issues raised in the report have been welcomed to the same degree. Mr Sammon pointed out,

"Some issues need much more analysis. Specifically the Chamber would be concerned at the phasing out of grants to business which do not relate to R&D and the reduction of support for company training. We need to be careful not to make Northern Ireland uncompetitive in the global space. For the NW, the way these recommendations are implemented will be of critical importance."

Another area of concern that the Chamber had put forward is that within the suite of economic policies and throughout the DETI Corporate plan is the lack of emphasis on Balanced Regional Development. Despite the existence for some years now of a spatial strategy for Northern Ireland and Regional Development Strategy that identifies Derry as the Hub and Regional Capital of the NW, the potential of a key city such as Derry and its cross-border hinterland to contribute to the achievement of the PFG productivity goal members feel is largely ignored. At a strategic level, the Chamber feels this is of critical importance if NI is to achieve real and meaningful success in narrowing the productivity gap. A strong NI needs a strong NW.
Jim concluded,
"We would like to have seen more emphasis on this regional aspect - however this is a good start. The job now for the Minister and her Executive colleagues is to implement the recommendations contained in the report"