Every day clients of Invest Northern Ireland have, on average, invested over £1.4m in the local economy and exported almost £11.5m of goods and services, as investments stimulated by the agency have contributed to increasing employment, new business formation and improved regional competitiveness, figures released today show.

The figures are included in the Invest NI Performance Information Report, which provides detailed information and analysis relevant to an assessment of the performance in the agency and its clients for the five year period since its inception in 2002.

Commenting on the report's publication, Invest NI's Chairman, Stephen Kingon, said: "Our support is directed towards the growth of the private sector and recent evidence indicates that this has been increasing in terms of the number of new businesses, employment and regional competitiveness. The performance of our clients, the majority of which are locally owned SME's, is an important measure of our success. Encouragingly, smaller businesses (those with less than 50 employees) recorded the highest rates of growth over the period, with sales increasing by 50% and exports by 75%."

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The Report shows that, over the period, 50% of all assistance offered by Invest NI was to clients located within disadvantaged areas, which contain 30% of the population, with 74% of first-time inward-investment projects planning to locate in disadvantaged areas. In future, new foreign direct investment, which will increasingly be of a services nature, is likely to be focused on the two large conurbations of Belfast and Londonderry, driven by the available population within a travel to work area.

Planned investments in the West of Northern Ireland amounted to £2,019 per head of adult population, compared to £1,872 in the East. Overall inward investment per head was some 43% higher in the West than the East.

In totality, Invest NI offered £439 of assistance per head of adult population in Northern Ireland, which contributed towards projects that planned to invest £1,912 per head, with the highest level of assistance (£513) and investment (£2,328) per head being in the North West.

Detailing how Invest NI interventions are driving economic growth, Leslie Morrison, Chief Executive of Invest NI said: "We have initiated and delivered programmes to support product and process development, to help Northern Ireland businesses explore new external markets and to enhance business start-up activity.

"Many of these are delivering tangible results with the total sales output of our clients increasing by 13% in real terms over the period to a total of £10.3bn by 2005/06."

Invest NI also provided £3m of funding to the Prince's Trust for the PTNI Business Programme, resulting in over 800 new businesses started by disadvantaged youth.

(GK)