By Business & Finance 
Invest Northern Ireland’s results for 2014-2015 show another strong year of performance, delivering £7 of investment in the NI economy for every £1 of support.
Invest Northern Ireland works with individuals, companies and organisations in manufacturing and tradable services which show the ambition and commitment to grow by being more innovative, more entrepreneurial and more internationally focused.
Over the course of 2014-15 Invest NI support has delivered:
- 13,829 new promoted jobs
- 9,410 new jobs
- £1.4bn of investment in the economy
- 25 new investors for Northern Ireland
Alastair Hamilton, CEO of Invest NI, said: “2014-15 was a phenomenal year for Invest NI, outperforming our best year on record in 2013-14. During the course of the year our support for businesses helped secure nearly 14,000 new jobs, a 30% increase on last year, with almost 60% of these outside Belfast. These jobs will be created across a range of industries over the coming three to five years, and will deliver over £300m of salaries annually to the NI economy.
Northern Ireland’s standing as a great place to do business continues to grow and in 2014-15 Invest NI attracted a record 25 new investors to Northern Ireland, securing over 1,000 new jobs and over £63m of investment.
“Supporting job creation is only one of the ways we help drive economic growth in Northern Ireland”, continued Hamilton. “We also support businesses to invest in research and development and skills and last year our support contributed towards £131m of business investment in R&D, 20% above target. We also supported a number of significant skills investment projects leveraging £62m of investment in skills ensuring company staff have the best skills to help the business grow.”
In addition to these positive in year results, the agency has also released its performance against Programme for Government (PfG) targets.
Commenting on the PfG results, Invest NI chairman Mark Ennis said: “At the time the NI Executive was initially setting these targets for Invest NI our economy was still in the depths of a recession and many, including the Invest NI Board, felt that the targets would be very challenging. It is therefore a great achievement to be able to report a set of results which, in most areas is so significantly over target, in some cases by nearly 170%.
“In the last couple of years we have seen the Northern Ireland economy begin to grow again, and business confidence increase. As a result we have been able to support a large number of businesses to bring forward projects, creating new jobs, investing in R&D and ultimately creating wealth and investment in the Northern Ireland economy. I am extremely proud of the achievements we have made over this four year period.”
View a performance animation here.
