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Northern Ireland Office

Answer

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 the publication of the IDB Annual Report in mid- November. Separate figures for prospective foreign and United Kingdom investors are not available for 1994-95 and would involve disproportionate costs to extract. 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 Derry 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 Via elements for other than inward investment purposes, such as visits to tourists attractions, are excluded. 2 General visits to Northern Ireland not involving a specific area are excluded. 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 _________________________________________________________________________________________________.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

94833; 336 c932-4W;336 c932-3W

Session

1998-99

Subjects

Northern Ireland Foreign investment in UK Industrial Development Board for Northern Ireland

Contains statistics

Yes