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British officials will welcome 200 companies from around the world to Belfast this week, showcasing Northern Ireland as an investment location offering unique access to EU and UK markets post-Brexit.
British investment minister Lord Dominic Johnson said Gulf sovereign wealth funds and Japanese and U.S. companies were eyeing opportunities in the region.
He promised the conference would “put Northern Ireland on the map” and would announce a number of investments at the two-day summit starting on Tuesday. The meeting will be attended by UK Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenock, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris and US Special Envoy for the Region Joe Kennedy III.
“(The meeting) is about creating a stir around Northern Ireland,” Johnson told the Financial Times.
But more than a year of political paralysis in the region has cast a pall over the event. Northern Ireland’s power-sharing executive and Stormont Assembly have not been functioning since May last year after the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party boycotted them over a dispute over post-Brexit trade arrangements.
The power vacuum has not only raised fears of irreparable damage to struggling public services in one of Britain’s most deprived regions, but also highlighted how its turbulent politics have undermined its ability to manage its finances.
Britain and the EU say the Windsor framework, an agreement agreed earlier this year to ease post-Brexit trade frictions, could change Northern Ireland’s fortunes. But local business leaders are skeptical of the impact of the power vacuum the investment summit could create.
“It’s clear we’re trying to bring inward investment into Northern Ireland… Unless there’s some political traction and stability, it’s just an unlikely start,” the CEO of a leading Belfast tech company said. . “
He added that the meeting would only “put more people into the waiting room of people who might invest in Northern Ireland”.
Andrew Pyne wants to launch low-cost airline Fly Atlantic in 2025 to turn Belfast International Airport into a hub for cheap transatlantic flights, complaining that a lack of support from the UK and US governments could force him to Look elsewhere.
“I don’t think they understand the importance of this to the Northern Ireland economy – the inward investment that comes with connectivity,” he said. While it would be unfair to blame all delays on Stormont’s paralysis, it was certainly “a factor”.
He said his attempts to secure US immigration pre-clearance in Dublin for Belfast had only received a “bureaucratic” and “cold” response in Washington and London, even though it could “facilitate the process of private investment”.
The UK Northern Ireland Office said it had not yet received a formal application from Atlantic Airways. The Stormont Economy Ministry and the US Embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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