Titanic Belfast, the world's largest Titanic visitor attraction, has been completed on time and within budget.

Tourism Minister, Arlene Foster today said that considering the scale and complexity of the project this was a remarkable achievement.

Other key features of the new building include:

•A 1,000 seater banqueting facility – the largest in Belfast;

•The largest concrete pour to date in Ireland with 42,000 cubic metres (or 700 lorry deliveries) forming its foundations;

•A construction timeline similar to that of Titanic - separated by 100 years;

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•3,000 individual aluminium panels covering the exterior facade – two-thirds of which are unique in design.

The Minister continued: "These are only a few of the noteworthy facts and stories which lie behind the construction of this incredible building that brings the Titanic story back to Belfast where it belongs.

"Titanic has captured the public imagination for the last 100 years and there are no signs of that interest waning. We should all be proud of and celebrate Belfast’s world famous shipbuilding and maritime history that created Titanic. It was the largest moving man-made object of its time and the many other incredible vessels that were built in Belfast by our skilled tradesmen.

"I want to congratulate everyone who has worked so hard and invested so much in bringing this project to fruition. I am confident that Titanic Belfast will be a visitor experience of international quality and be one of the most exciting and dramatic tourism projects opening in 2012 anywhere in the globe."

(CD/GK)