About 80 per cent of the €15 billion Cross-Border trade now taking place on the island is controlled by locally-owned small and medium-sized firms, a Belfast conference has been told.
Describing the figures as “fantastic”, the chief executive of InterTrade Ireland, Margaret Hearty, said three-quarters of all companies on the island that start to export make their first sales north, or south of the border.
She was speaking at a conference held to encourage growth along the Dublin/Belfast Economic Corridor, “which could be one of the leading economic hubs in Europe”, Northern Ireland’s First Minister, Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill declared.
Speaking shortly after the Stormont Executive had signed off on the first Programme for Government for a decade, the First Minister said it is now time “to look towards the future and maximise the potential that certainly exists.
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“That’s something that we have to grab with both hands because the opportunity that it provides for us to compete and more importantly to succeed on the world stage is something not to be missed,” she told the conference.
Calling for “supercharged action, Deputy First Minister, the Democratic Unionist Party’s Emma Little-Pengelly said “incredible things” are happening along the length of the Dublin/Belfast Economic Corridor.
Despite the challenges since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, she said Northern Ireland and the Republic are “undoubtedly in a very different place” with strong co-operation taking place on subjects of mutual interest.
John Walsh, the chief executive of Belfast City Council, said the days when Dublin and Belfast would have seen themselves in competition are gone, since the case that both can make is stronger with co-operation.
“There is no reason why the cities and the regions can’t work on a complementary basis for the greater good of our people. From our perspective, we will be pursuing that very, very hard going forward,” he said.
Michael Lohan, the chief executive of IDA Ireland, said Dublin is not competing with Belfast: “We’re competing with the world. Our competition isn’t (here). Our competition is actually 6,000 kilometres away, 10,000 kilometres away.”
The natural “second city” on the island is Belfast, not Cork, noted Dublin City University’s Professor John Doyle: “Dublin’s congested. Anyone who drives through it for work, anyone who’s looking for a house there knows that.”
Cork, on the scale, is “not big enough for big international investors”, even if it is strong in biopharma, but the gap between Dublin and Belfast is closer than the one between Dublin and Cork.
“With Belfast, if you look internationally, there’s a rough rule of thumb. Second cities are roughly 40 per cent to 50 per cent the size of a first city. Companies feel they can move there. Belfast is a bit bigger even than that size,” he said.
Calling for work to be done to improve the transferability and recognition of skills, Rowena Rodrigues of Glen Dimplex said many workers have “a perception” that their skills will not be recognised.
“That’s a big thing for us. We actually have more people moving from our Dublin office to our Melbourne office than we do between (our plants) in Dunleer and Newry. And that’s a fact. And that needs to change,” she said.
Talks are needed between the Irish and British tax authorities to remove hurdles that are impeding the growth of an all-island labour market on the island of Ireland, InvestNI chief executive, Kieran O’Donoghue said.
Such restrictions affecting home working, pensions, the length of time people can work in one jurisdiction but be tax-resident in the other are known to the Revenue Commissioners in Dublin and HM Revenue and Customs in London.
“That would pave the way for deeper integration of the labour market, which would help Northern Ireland and the Republic. Because both economies need more skills and more people. There would be economic opportunities on both sides, “he said.
IDA chief executive, Mr Lohan agreed strongly, saying that the tax complications facing employers hiring cross-border workers have been become too difficult: “It has become too complicated. We need to resolve that.,
