A plan with which the British government hopes to transform Northern Ireland's economy by 2015 was unveiled yesterday.
The Regional Economic Strategy focuses resources on four key areas that ministers hope will turn Northern Ireland into a high value-added, highly skilled, innovative and enterprising economy. The areas are infrastructure, enterprise, skills, and innovation and R&D.
Putting the strategy out for public consultation for three months, finance minister David Hanson said: "The government's central economic aim is to sustain high and stable levels of economic and employment growth to secure prosperity for all the people of Northern Ireland."
The economic strategy also sets out interventions to tackle economic inactivity and improve the employment rate - and acknowledges that closer economic co-operation with the Republic could deliver mutual benefits, he said.
The minister said it was clear that significant reform was needed in Northern Ireland to deliver the economic vision.
But he said it was not something the government could do in isolation and the private sector had a crucial role to play.
Business bosses were unimpressed with Mr Hanson's announcement. Frank Bryan, chairman of the Institute of Directors, said the strategy lacked ambition in setting goals for the improvement of Northern Ireland's economic performance.
He said: "The strategy recognises our poor relative performance against the rest of the UK - for example, our productivity is only 80 per cent of the UK average - but it is singularly uninspiring in terms of setting goals.
"If Northern Ireland is to become a vibrant economy able to compete globally we need to start benchmarking ourselves against other countries, not just the rest of the UK." - (PA)
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, yesterday announced increased Government funding for the City of Derry airport. The €10.87 million funding to facilitate development works at the airport will be matched by the British government.
Mr Ahern noted that the airport "serves the entire north-west region" and said the funding was an example of the sort of projects that would receive cross-Border funding under the new National Development Plan.
