A hi-tech Taiwanese group plans to invest more than £27 million sterling and create 150 jobs over the next three years in Omagh, Co Tyrone.Ritek of Taiwan has chosen Omagh as the location for a new company that will manufacture recordable compact discs.
The new company, Rixell Ltd, will receive financial support totaling £3.5 million from the North's Industrial Development Board and will produce the optical storage discs for the European market.
This is the first major investment project to locate in Omagh since the 1998 "Real IRA" bombing that killed 29 people.
Sir Reg Empey, the North's Minister for Enterprise, said the new Taiwanese investment was a vote of confidence in the North's new political arrangements and the people of Omagh.
"Ritek undertook an extensive search for possible locations for this project and looked at sites in America, Europe and Asia before deciding on Northern Ireland.
Ritek, which was founded in 1988 and employs 4,000 people worldwide, already has a presence in Northern Ireland through its shareholding in the west Belfast-based optical disk company, Multimedia Info-Tech.
Speaking in Omagh yesterday Mr Steven Tseng, a director of Rixell, said the decision to locate in Omagh was heavily influenced by its positive experiences in Belfast.
"Omagh was chosen over a number of alternative locations because we judged it best met our essential requirement for a pool of well-educated and easily motivated people," he added.
