A SURVEY completed before the breakdown in the IRA ceasefire shows that in the past year the Northern Ireland economy has been outperforming that of most other UK regions.
The Coopers & Lybrand Regional Trends Survey, which was carried out in December and January, identifies Northern Ireland as one of the areas in which economic activity is increasing faster than the UK average.
The partner in charge of Coopers & Lybrand's Northern Ireland operation, Mr Stephen Kingon, says it is still too early to say what the results of the resumption of violence might be, and he remains optimistic about the prospects for the next 12 months.
"The local economy has continued to improve over the last five years," he says. This is confirmed by the survey, which shows that exports are making an increasingly significant contribution to growth. GDP in the Northern Ireland economy is now put at between 2 per cent and 2.5 per cent.
In the UK as a whole, output declined from 2.4 per cent in the third quarter of 1995 to just 1.8 per cent in the final quarter of the year, casting doubt on the Chancellor's forecast of a growth rate of 3 per cent for 1996.
