North needs to investigate how best to attract new investors

BELFAST BRIEFING:Invest NI attracts £6 of investment for every £1 it stakes, but it may be time for a new strategy, writes Francess McDonnell

SELLING NORTHERN Ireland as an investment location has never been an easy task and at times it has been a thankless one.

In the past decade, thanks largely to the peace process, Northern Ireland has had the opportunity to change its image and create a new identity for itself on the global investment stage.

It has been a long, hard battle to replace the CNN images of balaclava-clad youths throwing petrol bombs at security forces in the minds of potential investors. But the North's economic development bodies have worked hard to project the reality of the new Northern Ireland and what it can offer to multinational corporations.

At the heart of this campaign to bring much needed investment dollars, euro, rupees and any other tradeable currency to the North in the last seven years has been Invest Northern Ireland and its chief executive Leslie Morrison.

Invest NI is the lead economic development agency in the North - it is tasked with helping expand the economy by assisting new and existing businesses and by attracting new inward investment.

It is a tall order under any circumstances but with Northern Ireland's "Troubles" baggage and the ever attractive corporation tax rates just south of the Border, it has been more than an uphill struggle for Invest NI to deliver its remit. In the past 12 months the global economic climate has made it an even more difficult task.

Invest NI has just formally published its annual report for 2007-08. According to its figures, support from Invest NI levered a total of £689 million of investment commitments for Northern Ireland from its clients - 54 per cent of which relate to locally-owned businesses.

Invest NI claims that each pound of taxpayers' money "it offered in support of clients' growth plans" also levered a total of £6.

The figures show the agency's total expenditure fell year on year from £161 million to £153 million in the last financial year. Grant expenditure and programme-related costs remained static at £116 million, so the cost of running Invest NI in 2007-08 came to about £37 million.

The question a lot of people in the North are asking now is whether Invest NI delivers value for money? Has it got the right formula for attracting and creating new jobs in the North or is it now time for a shake-up in the methods Invest NI employs to try and win investment?

The North can no longer afford to dangle massive financial incentives as a means of persuading potential investors to locate in Northern Ireland.

There is some level of assistance still available but this alone is not enough of an incentive to persuade companies to choose the North over another location in the UK or the Republic.

So if a potential investor is considering a number of similar locations what could swing the difference in Northern Ireland's favour?

In the end it has come down to the first point of contact - the sales people - and in this case that means Invest NI. They are the people who are going to make the difference in securing Northern Ireland's economic future or losing hundreds of vital new jobs to another location.

There are valid reasons to invest in the North - it offers a cost-competitive location; it has a well-educated, young workforce; and it has excellent infrastructure in place - but how is this message being communicated to the companies and individuals who need to hear it?

There are also issues about whether Invest NI can concentrate on wooing potential new investors to the North while also supporting home-grown companies struggling to survive in the economic downturn.

Invest NI is an agency which has a lot of demands on its resources and which is facing a lot of very difficult challenges. Not least of these is the fact that its chief executive has announced his intention to retire from the post next March.

Leslie Morrison says that after seven years in the job it is time for a new chief executive to take Invest NI forward. Perhaps it is also time for a new approach to winning investment for the North.