Jobs lost faster than they were created, says report. Check it out:
(Newsletter Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) JOBS were being lost faster than they were being created, despite hundreds of millions of pounds in investment by Northern Ireland's economic development agency during its first three years in operation.
A report today into Invest Northern Ireland's performance reveals that over pounds 400 million was spent supporting economic projects between 2002 and 2005 while overall employment in its client companies dropped by 4,700.
The figures are contained in the internal report covering the first three years after Invest Northern Ireland was created from a group of separate economic agencies.
The net losses were despite thousands of jobs being created with Invest NI financial assistance over the period.
Launching the report, Invest NI chief executive Leslie Morrison said it marked "an important stage in the maturity of the organisation" and should be seen as a first step towards the production of meaningful performance indicators.
"The business of economic development is complex. Invest NI cannot take credit for all the positive consequences associated with our activities, just as we cannot take full responsibility for addressing all of the economic difficulties faced by Northern Ireland."
An agency spokesman said the drop in employment in its client companies was due to the huge fall-off in employment of around 50 per cent in the manufacturing sector, in particular textiles, adding that similar falls were recorded by Enterprise Ireland in the Republic and other UK agencies.
Without the job creation efforts, he said the situation could have been worse.
"There are clearly many factors which influence the performance of our clients, only one of which is assistance received from Invest NI," said Mr Morrison.
"We acknowledge that further work is required to understand better the connections between our interventions and their consequences."
The report highlighted that over the three-year period, it offered assistance of just over pounds 400 million towards projects which plan to invest over pounds 1.5 billion within the Northern Ireland economy.
Over 8,800 offers were made to help individuals start a business. Not all start-ups survived, but INI estimates some 7,800 jobs were created.
A further 6,500 were created through foreign direct investment by companies either new to Northern Ireland or those expanding.
The value of exports generated by Invest NI client companies increased, in real terms, by 12.5 per cent to pounds 4.2 billion.
Almost 70 per cent of small or medium-sized client companies introduced some degree of product or process innovation - compared with 39 per cent for other local businesses and 62 per cent for a comparative British sample.
Copyright 2006 . Century Newsletters Ltd.
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