Investors create 3,500 jobs in NI

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Devolved government in Northern Ireland will create greater opportunities for overseas investment, according to Invest NI.

The body's latest figures have revealed that foreign investors created almost 3,500 jobs in Northern Ireland in 2006.

Invest NI's Chief Executive Leslie Morrison said the time was right to persuade companies to come to NI.

He said political stability in Northern Ireland made NI an attractive option for overseas companies.

"With a new Assembly only days away, we must utilise a new era of political accommodation to improve the profile of Northern Ireland abroad and its attractiveness for foreign direct investment," he said.

Mr Morrison said that despite increasingly tough competition for foreign direct investment, 2006/07 had been Invest NI's most successful year since the organisation was created in 2002.

He said: "A total of 28 new overseas-owned projects were secured and these are expected to create 3,497 new jobs and to safeguard 199 existing jobs."