Northern Ireland and the Border counties have for too long unjustly suffered a poor image abroad, a conference has been told.

Norbrook chairman and local businessman Dr Edward Haughey told delegates that this had resulted in the regions being isolated. Speaking at the opening of the cross-Border trade mission in Newry yesterday, Mr Haughey said: "We have been isolated wrongly in Northern Ireland and the Newry/Mourne area for quite a long time, but over the past few years, this area has been totally transformed."

Dr Haughey said his firm, Norbrook Laboratories, had operated in the Newry area since 1968 and had not lost a day's work because of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

However, he added: "It wasn't easy to go abroad to try to get contracts. When I would say I came from Northern Ireland, there would be a certain degree of concern. But the image abroad does not fit the reality."

More than 20 companies from the United States and Canada are represented at the two-day, crossBorder mission, which is being hosted by the Newry & Mourne Enterprise Agency and the Louth County Enterprise Board. Today, the event switches to Dundalk. The aim of the mission is to stimulate inward investment into the region, which has suffered from the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Dr Haughey said Northern Ireland and the Newry/Mourne region offered great potential to outside investors.

"If you want to start a business, create a business partner or do business, this is a good place to do it," he said. "We have here a dedicated workforce, an enthusiastic workforce and an excellent education system. "Banbridge Academy, close to here, has the highest A' level results in the UK, while Colman's College in Newry has some of the best A' level results also. To run a business, you need people and you need a good attitude, and in Newry you get a good attitude and you get tremendous people."

Welcoming the delegations from the US and Canada, Dr Haughey said: "Business is no longer parochial. It is the international mix which gets competition going."

The chairman of the International Fund for Ireland, Mr William McCarter, praised the Newry & Mourne Enterprise Agency for the work it had carried out in stimulating business and creating jobs in the Border area.

"It's a prime example of the kind of organisation into which the fund has put its money," he said.

"The people who work with the fund have been helpful in getting agencies like this off the ground, staying with them and developing them."

The fund has committed £400 million (€508 million) of its donors' money to 4,500 projects in Northern Ireland and the six southern Border counties since it was set up, he said.

"A recent independent survey has shown that, over a 10-year period, the fund, together with its agency partners and the private sector, was helpful in creating around 32,000 jobs in Northern Ireland and the six Border counties," said Mr McCarter.