A NEW study has called for the setting up of a Border development zone to address serious disadvantages associated with Border areas on the island of Ireland.
The call has been made in a document, Cross-Border Economic Renewal, prepared by economists Dr John Bradley and Prof Michael Best and published yesterday.
It found that “many aspects of the border region economy... suffered from the peripheral nature of the region, the economic policy implications of the Border, and the interaction of these two issues”.
Interaction of peripherality and the Border itself presented a “unique challenge...if the Border region is to be reintegrated into the Irish, Northern Irish and island-wide economies”.
“For the foreseeable future the separate operation of the main Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland development agencies is a fact of life” and, although a degree of co-operation does take place between them, this was “mainly in the sphere of island marketing as distinct from island-wide industrial strategy,” the report said.
The Border region was caught between two perspectives, it added. The national development agencies were legally obliged to focus on their own jurisdictions while local government and other regional institutions in Border areas hadn’t the resources to overcome the challenges of peripherality “that are holding back development” there.
It said that the goal of the development zone would be to stimulate a form of development “uniquely adapted to the region” so that it “is able to generate resources for development internally.”
This could be via “a revitalised small-scale manufacturing and service sector base that has the potential for higher external sales and ultimately a greater international export potential”.
It suggested there were likely to be three key dimensions in the setting up of such a zone.
First was “spatial” and would involve defining the extent of the Border region economy.
Second was “sectoral” and would identify those sectors uniquely suitable and adaptable for promotion within the zone.
Third would be “institutional”, which identified co-operative policy frameworks and actions needed in the zone if it is to have a greater change of sharing in island-wide prosperity.
A combination of the three would “provide a better basis for dealing with the exceptional challenges of the border region”, the report said.
