A rejuvenated Northern Ireland is growing through its advantages in skilled labour and low costs.

	Area:	13,587 sq km
	Population:	1.7m
	Regional GDP³	£17.0bn
	Exports to EU³	£2.0bn
	Exports outside EU³	£1.7bn
	Unemployment‡	6.4%
	Industrial property cost*	96.7
	Office rental cost**	-
	% of exports to Asia/Oceania³	9.7%
	Foreign manufacturing investment²	£112m
	UK manufacturing investment²	£378m
	R&D expenditure³	£99m
	Gross Value Added per employee¹	£29,300
	Export value per employee³	£5212
	Average earnings per hour (male)³	£9.70
	Average earnings per hour (female)³	£8.40
	³=2000; ‡=Q1,2001; ²=1997; *index: UK=100 (type 3 industrial property Q1 2001); ¹=manufacturing; ** index: UK=100 (type 1 office accommodation Q1 2001) All regional statistics: DTI (Regional Competitive Indicators); Office of National Statistics.

Two-thirds of Northern Ireland’s population lives within 50km of of Belfast, a city that has transformed itself in recent years. Fresh talent and world-class technologies bring the world’s most successful knowledge-based businesses to the city, reforging the region’s fame for inventiveness and commercial zeal.

Infrastructure
Northern Ireland has one of the most advanced telecommunications systems in Europe. A deregulated industry and SDH fibre-optic infrastructure provides a world-class service at low cost. Three secure underwater cables provide rapid data access to the UK.

Geographically the region’s relatively small area makes movement quick and easy. Transport links are highly efficient, with excellent and keenly priced port and airport services – Belfast is now the UK’s third largest air cargo centre. Every manufacturing plant is within an hour’s drive of a port or airport.

Property is plentiful and highly competitively priced. Belfast has the lowest net rents in the UK – prime office rents are a third of those in Dublin, and less than a fifth of London prices. Fully-serviced sites and high-quality industrial estates are available throughout the region.

Education and research
The highly skilled and well-educated workforce has a strong focus on ICT – as a proportion of population, the region produces 50 times more IT-related graduates than the United States. The University of Ulster has the UK’s largest informatics faculty and Europe’s largest business faculty, as well as 10 applied research centres providing a direct interface between research and industry. The Coleraine campus-based science research park focuses on life/ health technology and environmental science; the Londonderry park specialises in software and internet development, and intelligent systems.

Students in Northern Ireland consistently outperform the rest of the UK, with 60% of high-school graduates going on to college education. Some 10,000 new university graduates enter the labour pool each year.

Investment
The region’s steady transformation towards a technology-driven, export-focused economy has been highly successful in attracting foreign investment worth more than £2.9bn since 1995. Names such as Seagate Technology, Liberty Mutual, Halifax, Fujitsu and Prudential are among the corporations which have located key operations in the region and who continue to invest because of a profitable track record. In 2000/01, ICT sectors accounted for 88% of all FDI, with contact centres the leading field. Northern Ireland is recognised as one of Europe’s leading contact centre locations, with Mitial surveys identifying Belfast as the most efficient location for 500+-seat centres in the UK or Ireland.

Other opportunities
A diverse electronics sector covers aerospace and defence, automotive, robotics, industrial equipment, consumer products and communications. The region’s universities are world leaders in digital signal processing and silicon technology.
Other key strengths are in software, life and health sectors, manufacturing, food and drink, automotive, engineering and oil/gas.

The Industrial Development Board for Northern Ireland (IDB) coordinates the region’s investment support services, maintaining a portfolio of business and industrial sites, and advising on cash grants and incentives which significantly offset the cost of telecoms and computing equipment, and other expenses.

Websites:
IDB Northern Ireland www.investni.com