Strong culture of enterprise essential for future growth

Deputy First Minister, Mark Durkan, has said that with new innovation and a strong culture of enterprise, Northern Ireland can achieve a society and economy to meet the needs of all people.

Mr Durkan made the statement as he addressed the Enterprise NI Conference, which was meeting to consider effective business support and the development of cross border enterprise initiatives.

He said: "We should attempt to build an economy, where risk in business is encouraged, where the entrepreneur is celebrated and the option of self-employment is seen as a viable, rewarding and honourable career path.

"We can do this, but only if we create the proper relationships between Government and our partners in the private and voluntary sectors and by definition create the necessary support structure.

"We need to develop a balanced approach to our industrial policy – we should not develop an over dependency upon a mobile inward investment sector which at times of decline can lead to major backlash which translates into lost jobs, despair and broken families.

"A balance that includes mobile inward investment but also a vibrant and growing small business and community business sector must be built. To achieve these goals we must take the relevant support actions to boost the business birth rate, create the culture for enterprise and build our existing small businesses through market and product growth."

The Deputy First Minister also said he recognised that existing firms in the strong SME sector had an important role to play through an integrated approach. He continued: "With regard to our existing firms, our approach has to be proactive, integrated and thoughtful. We must build the best support possible that provides timely, accurate and effective advice to those firms that can grow and prosper.”

Enterprise NI is a network organisation with a membership consisting of 32 local enterprise agencies established in 1999. Collectively the network provides over 1.63 million square feet of workspace and employs over 200 staff. The agencies support over 5,000 businesses employing nearly 25,000 people across Northern Ireland.

Enterprise NI’s mission is to make Northern Ireland more enterprising and innovative through working to increase the business birth rate, sustaining existing small businesses and to increase the capacity of members in the network to meet this challenge. (MB)