Northern Ireland export finalists announced

Company and language service providers from across Northern Ireland have been presented with awards at the regional stage of the National Languages for Export Awards organised by Trade Partners UK.

The winners of the awards, which took place at Queen’s University in Belfast have now been entered into the national finals to compete against other regional winners from all over the UK.

The Northern Ireland regional winners were: Paul K Nolan & Co; Docksafe Ltd of Bangor; FG Wilson of Larne; Belfast Institute of Further & Higher Education and Queen’s University, Belfast. Merit awards were also presented to CEM Systems of Belfast, Montupet (UK) Ltd of Dunmurry and Nortel Networks who are based in Newtownabbey.

Addressing the audience Alan Neville, chief executive of LEDU, said: “I am very impressed with the range of entries and the high standard for Northern Ireland this year. At LEDU, we encourage companies to develop profitably in export markets. I am therefore delighted to see that organisations of all sizes and industries have implemented first class language strategies and have reaped the benefits.

“Cultural and linguistic differences are often enough to deter any company trading overseas but today’s winners are evidence that expanding markets overseas can be extremely advantageous.”

The awards represent examples of companies that have offices, clients or customers abroad and are using their language skills in everyday business and educational organisations that have excelled in their language teaching practice. (MB)