HC Deb 28 October 1999 vol 336 cc932-3W
Mr. William Ross

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many Irish Development Board sponsored visits of prospective incoming(a) foreign and (b) United Kingdom investors there have been to each council area in each of the last five financial years and the current year to date; and how many were carried forward to investment. [94833]

Mr. McFall

Visits arranged by IDB to Northern Ireland District Council areas for potential investors in the four years to 31 March 1998 are detailed in the following table. The details for 1998–99 will be made available with

IDB sponsored inward investment visits
1994–95 1995–96 1996–97 1997–98
Total Overseas UK Overseas UK Overseas UK
Antrim 26 13 5 26 8 18 3
Ards 5 3 0 10 0 1 0
Armagh 1 1 0 4 0 2 0
Ballymore 13 3 0 0 0 5 0
Ballymoney 3 1 0 3 0 2 0
Banbridge 2 2 1 1 0 1 0
Belfast 65 38 17 48 14 65 17
Carrickfergus 13 6 1 21 1 15 0
Castlemagh 1 8 0 6 0 2 0
Coleraine 5 3 0 7 0 7 0
Cookstown 4 15 2 9 1 9 0
Craigavon 12 16 0 15 0 15 1
Deny 18 29 1 27 5 14 0
Down 10 2 0 3 0 4 0
Dungannon 13 9 0 4 0 3 0
Fermanagh 3 11 0 10 5 3 2
Larne 6 4 0 1 0 9 0
Limavady 3 2 0 7 0 2 0
Lisburn 19 36 5 30 1 23 0
Magherafelt 3 4 0 0 0 1 0
Moyla 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Newry and Mourne 15 12 4 9 0 4 1
Newtownabbey 17 18 1 21 1 20 0
North Down 4 9 0 3 0 3 1
Omagh 2 6 0 8 0 5 0
Strabane 2 9 0 9 1 2 0
Total 265 260 37 282 37 235 25

Notes:

  1. 1 Via elements for other than inward investment purposes, such as visits to tourists attractions, are excluded.
  2. 2 General visits to Northern Ireland not involving a specific area are excluded.
  3. 3 Total District Council visits may exceed total visits to Northern Ireland as companies may visit more than one District Council area.

Companies investing in Northern Ireland may have visited more than once and in relation to different projects before making the decision to invest, Information relating investment to specific visits is not available and would involve disproportionate costs to extract. The number of inward investments promoted by IDB for each of the last five years is detailed in the table:

IDB promoted inward investment projects
New Expansion
1994–95 7 29
1995–96 10 25
1996–97 11 24
1997–98 12 29
1998–99 21 16
Total 61 123