Press Release
11 September 2002

Economic Development Forum meets in Belfast

Sir Reg Empey, MLA, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investment today welcomed members of the Economic Development Forum to their thirteenth meeting which was held at the Institute of Directors’ Headquarters in Belfast.

The primary role of the Forum is to provide advice to Ministers on matters affecting the development and future competitiveness of the Northern Ireland economy.  Membership includes both Government and the major social partner organisations.

Top of the agenda today was discussion on how to move forward the process of strengthening the local economy by working in partnership with all sectors, public, private, community and voluntary.  This process began on 20 June 2002, which saw the launch of the Forum’s first publication, Working Together for a Stronger Economy.  The publication provides a clear and agreed statement, by the Forum, of the priorities to be addressed if the NI economy is to be significantly strengthened during the period to the year 2010.  It set a high level framework of priorities, objectives, performance indicators, targets, supporting actions and key contributors.

At the time of publication, Forum members indicated that this was only the first stage in a much longer-term process.  Members gave an undertaking to produce, by the end of this year, a more detailed Action Plan describing the specific actions key contributors will take to bring about the desired improvement in NI’s economy performance and contribute to the achievement of the agreed targets.

At today’s meeting, Sir Reg emphasised the importance of all sectors being actively involved in developing the Action Plan.  He said, “The genuine partnership approach adopted by the Forum in developing the medium term strategic priorities will be the key to success and it is vital that this approach be repeated in producing the Action Plan.  There is no point in setting targets if we don’t then agree what steps we will each take to help meet them. By collectively focusing attention and actions on the key priorities identified by the Forum, I am confident that all sectors can make a major contribution to securing Northern Ireland’s future economic success.”

At today’s meeting, members also heard an update from Carmel Hanna, MLA, Minister for Employment and Learning, on the work of the Employability Taskforce and discussed progress in relation to a wide range of DETI-related activities.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

The EDF publication, and further information about the Forum, can be accessed at www.edfni.com

The membership of the Economic Development Forum is as follows:

BACKGROUND

INSTITUTE OF DIRECTORS

The Institute of Directors (IOD) is a business organisation with over 55,000 individual members in the UK.  Members are directors, senior partners, sole traders and senior executives from the private and public sectors.  The Institute seeks to advance the interests and professional development of company directors and to foster free enterprise.

Services to members include advisory services, professional development activities, conferences and networking opportunities.  The Institute’s network of 8 regions and 3 divisions now offers Club premises in Belfast, Edinburgh, Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham and Bristol in addition to the facilities available at the 116 Pall Mall headquarters.

The Northern Ireland Division is led by Chairman, Denis Rooney of Denis Rooney Associates.  The Division is a very active body with around 870 members from the widest possible range of businesses in Northern Ireland.  Each year it organises a varied programme of events including business speaker events, company visits, seminars, training courses and social occasions.