Could there be a worse time to call an investment conference? The head of the North's investment agency tells Dan Keenan, Northern News Editor, there is never a bad time to go looking for business

NOT FOR the first time in Northern Ireland, or anywhere else, a political settlement is followed by a business drive. However, not every major marketing ploy gears up in the teeth of a global credit crunch and amid so much international nervousness and uncertainty.

Not that Leslie Morrison, chief executive of Invest NI, is too put off by that.

Speaking after the press launch for the three-day US-NI investment conference gathering in Belfast later this week, he admits: "Well, it's a lousy time to expect people to come here and make investments because of the economic cycle.

"It's actually quite a good time to be introducing yourself to new people because lead times for investment projects tend to be about 18 months to two years and the composition of the Americans who will be coming to us will be about 60/40 new and existing investors who have reinvested.

"So, we are obviously interested not only in banking our friends and expecting them to invest more . . . the particular aim of it is a new beginning, to expand the range of contacts we have and to identify projects."

Invest NI's short history has had its notable successes, despite the many difficulties both political and economic within Northern Ireland and elsewhere.

Last week, just six months after the British government's flat refusal to consider offering the region wriggle room over corporation tax, Sir David Varney weighed in with his second survey of the local economy.

The public sector was too bloated, he said, public sector wages too high, privatisation was needed and more needed to be done to address educational under-achievement.

Not very encouraging. Morrison accepts all that, but he insists the Executive's plan to grow the private, wealth-creating side of the economy can work, and that the North can take more than a few leads from the South's boom.

He denies this week will amount to a publicity exercise.

"There will be some announcements certainly, but you can appreciate . . . if you want to have a conference and have big announcements at it, it would be more a PR exercise than an actual practical method to attract business. And it's the latter really.

"Its using the interesting political situation we're in. It's one year since the establishment of devolved government, to reassure people that Northern Ireland is open for business."

International trading difficulties aside, he admits the new political dispensation is partly the reason for rolling out the red carpet for the prime minister, the new Taoiseach and dozens of as-yet unnamed US entrepreneurs later this week.

A year after the powersharing deal between the DUP and Sinn Féin and on the 10th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement, Morrison is setting out his stall.

"The political platform, I think, that has been provided enables the Programme for Government, whose main priority is the private economy, to be shown to be what we're focusing on.

"So the issue is, here we are, we're ready to go, we've an excellent proposition, we've got good skills, good people, all the things that we talk about . . . we need your investment now and we believe that we can provide you with a profitable investment".

It is often repeated that American investors need three things: to be made welcome, to feel safe and to make a profit. There's no doubt you can have the lot in today's Northern Ireland, he argues.

"Americans don't like the perception of any conflict. There isn't conflict between the administrations North and South. There hasn't been for as long as I've been here. Longer than that. It's clear that we have the same sorts of objectives: for the Republic it's important that there is a strong, wealthy Northern Ireland and a stable Northern Ireland."

He takes a pragmatic attitude on the question of whether North and South are co-operating or competing economies.

"Well, it's like private business - it's both. Companies that are competitors also co-operate. The point is to be intelligent. Co-operate where it helps both. Compete where you are head to head."

In the same way, he denies Northern Ireland is hampered through its use of sterling as opposed to the euro.

"People often thought when sterling was very strong it was the wrong currency because it affected negatively exporters. But now it's actually weak compared to the euro. Were we in the euro, our exporters would actually have a much harder time.

"But the issue of currency is actually far more complex than that. Obviously weak currencies tend to stoke up inflation and stronger currencies keep a lid on it more easily. So I don't think the currency, separate as it is from the euro, has had a significant impact one way or the other."

Addressing the legacy of the Troubles, he does not accept that Northerners are addicted to cosy public-sector positions and state handouts and are averse to the risk-taking of business.

"Business start-up rates are quite low [and] we all talk about our industrial past, which has been quite stellar at a time," he admits. "But I don't think any of these things are genetic. I mean I'm Irish, I lived overseas for 31 years, 19 years in the States, it's quite extraordinary to me the number of people in the States who've got Irish background and who are very successful. So it's clearly not genetic, it's a cultural thing.

"People from Northern Ireland who go overseas tend to be quite successful. I think we play on a very small stage here. One of the structural needs here is to have bigger companies that can spend on research and development and overseas marketing.

"But we have very good entrepreneurs here, some excellent companies and some very forceful people. If we multiplied them by five then we could begin to feel happier. But I have no doubt that that will come."