Features - All

Having met at a matchmaking event, organized as part of the Food Business Summit and Interreg-funded NICHE project, two breweries (one from Finland and one from Northern Ireland) have been working together to produce original and innovative beer recipes.

This feature is the fourth in our ‘Spotlight on Singapore’ series of collaborative articles providing insights into the dynamics of the region and potential opportunities for Northern Ireland businesses in Singapore; a gateway location to Asia.

SMEs across Northern Ireland, particularly early stage high-potential start-ups, have seen their daily businesses interrupted and have felt the impact of reduced funding options available to them at this time. To help resolve this, we have introduced a new COVID-19 Equity Investment Fund (CEIF) as part of our Access to Finance portfolio.

Open for applications from today (9 September 2020) the new COVID-19 Digital Selling Capability Grant is specifically aimed at helping retail and wholesale businesses grow online sales

Below is the speech given by our CEO, Kevin Holland, at the NI Executive Press Conference.

This year, I had the opportunity to sit on the panel for the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise . Now in their 54th year, the Queen’s Awards are considered by many as the highest UK official award for businesses and are awarded for outstanding achievement in the categories of innovation, international trade, sustainable development and promoting opportunity through social mobility.

This feature is the third in our ‘Spotlight on Singapore’ series of collaborative articles providing insights into the dynamics of the region and potential opportunities for Northern Ireland businesses in Singapore; a gateway location to Asia.

This feature is the second in our ‘Spotlight on Singapore’ a series of collaborative articles providing insights into the dynamics of region and potential opportunities for Northern Ireland businesses in Singapore; a gateway to Asia.

COVID-19 has brought many challenges, but there are also opportunities and some Northern Ireland SME businesses are looking to take advantage of this.

In recent months, much of the world has had travel and business restrictions in place in the fight against COVID-19. Countries in Asia were among the first to go into lockdown, and are now amongst the first to emerge. As the restrictions ease and Asia moves to a ‘new-normal’ there are business opportunities for Northern Ireland companies to expand in the region.

The immediate global impact of COVID-19 on businesses has been huge, both financially and operationally. It has caused disruptions to global and local supply chains, including the supply of essential raw materials and energy.

In this feature we look at the activity we undertook during 2019/2020 to support business growth, future investment and job creation across Northern Ireland. This activity will drive our outcome performance in future years.

The sudden contraction of export markets, loss of supply chain and government decisions to lockdown whole countries and close all but essential businesses has sent shockwaves through economies right around the globe as COVID-19 has moved from continent to continent.

Each year we report our end of year performances figures, highlighting in particular our progress against our 4 year Business Strategy targets which were set as part of the draft Programme for Government.

In the previous feature (Part 1) we looked at how Northern Ireland businesses such as Armstrong Medical, Bloc Blinds, and O’Neills are rising to the challenge of COVID-19. In Part two we continue to look at businesses that are ramping up production to meet demand, using existing expertise to develop COVID-19 tests and those businesses who are collaborating to develop products that are helping to save lives.

In the first of a two-part feature, we look at how NI companies are taking huge steps to help the fight against COVID-19.

In the January/February 2020 edition of Business Eye, Rose Mary Stalker is clear about her short-term priorities as the new Chair at Invest Northern Ireland.

John Hood, Invest Northern Ireland’s Director of Food & Drink reflects on a challenging year for businesses and provides a flavour of how the agency will continue to support the sector in 2020.

The Graduate to Export programme for international marketing students was recently launched. The programme allows Northern Ireland companies to enhance their export capability with a graduate assisting them with a market research project. As part of the programme we will be following the stories of three of the graduates to get an insight into their experiences.

After a competitive selection process, 10 local businesses have been chosen to participate on Invest Northern Ireland’s Graduate to Export Programme commencing in October 2019.