February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Stephen McKinley
Northern Ireland received both good and bad news on the business front this week.
Investment Belfast, a public-private sector venture to promote investment in Belfast, announced that it had received a record 68 inquiries last year, and believes that £250 million sterling and up to 500 new jobs are on the way by the end of the year.
At the same time, telecommunications giant Nortel announced yet more job cuts, and laid off 330 staff.
Investment Belfast’s chief executive, Brendan Mullen, said that his organization had helped Belfast’s and Northern Ireland’s image internationally, not least the trip representatives paid to Boston and Pittsburgh last year, that netted £10 million for Belfast.
"We are a young organization," Mullen said, "but we have begun to address some key issues about the city, we have become an information technology portal for Belfast, and we have been able to show that Northern Ireland technology can compete with the best in the world."
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Investment Belfast targeted three areas of the economy — information and communication technology, life and health technology and environmental technology.
But Mullen said Investment Belfast was having success only with companies that already knew something about Belfast and Northern Ireland — it has proved harder to reach companies with no knowledge of the region, or a negative image because of the Troubles.
Nortel’s layoffs are the fourth cut this year. Manager Chris Conway said that the cuts were part of an industry-wide downturn that he expected would last for a considerable period of time.
We have the utmost sympathy for the families and the employees as they go through this difficult process," he said.
From a workforce of 2,400, Nortel is now down to 1,600 at its Monkstown plant, and has laid off 15,000 employees around the world.