Eastern Regional Office

Our Eastern Team is located in Belfast and works in partnership with businesses and stakeholders across the Antrim & Newtownabbey and Belfast City council areas.

Our staff work on a 1-2-1 basis with CEOs who are ready, willing and able to launch competitive products or services into markets outside Northern Ireland.

Eastern Regional Office supported business performance

The Eastern Regional Office works with businesses from a breadth of sectors including Digital & Creative Technologies, Life & Health Sciences, Advanced Engineering & Manufacturing, Agri-Food, and Financial, Professional & Business Services. We also work with emerging sectors such as Cyber Security, Agri-Tech, Smart Cities and Creative businesses.

We also work in partnership with stakeholders to drive economic development across Northern Ireland, providing a range of support to help our export focused businesses think strategically and achieve greater export sales.

Over the last five years, we offered support of £221m to 1,276 local and international businesses based in Belfast and Antrim & Newtownabbey areas. This support, alongside the companies' investment commitments, has the potential to generate over £1.4bn investment into the local economy and lead to the creation of 10,065 jobs in the area. 

Council areas covered by the Eastern Regional Office

Antrim & Newtownabbey Council

As a Statutory Partner in Love Living Here, we are committed to working in partnership with Antrim & Newtownabbey Council to help businesses grow and compete globally.

Between 2018-19 and 2022-21 we provided support of £31m to 210 businesses based in the Borough. This support, combined with company investment, has the potential to generate almost £280m of investment in the area, and support the creation of 919 jobs.

You can find more detail on the business make-up of the area and our specific support in the following briefing:
Download the Invest Northern Ireland Council Briefing for the Antrim & Newtownabbey Borough Council area (PDF)

Our support included almost £700k of Local Economic Development funding to the council to support the development of a range of programmes to meet the needs of local business. This support was part funded by ERDF, under the Investment for Growth and Jobs Programme 2014-2020.

Council-led programmes include:

Belfast City Council

As a Statutory Partner in the Belfast Agenda, we are committed to working in partnership to help businesses across the city grow and compete globally.

We work with companies of different types and sizes to support their growth. In the last year, 46 percent of the assistance we offered was to Belfast based companies in the Digital & Creative Technologies sector. This represents a total of £81m investment with the potential of creating 631 new jobs.

You can find more detail on the business make-up of the area and our specific support in the following briefing:
Download the Invest Northern Ireland Council Briefing for the Belfast City Council area (PDF)

Our support included £1.9m of Local Economic Development funding to the council to support the development of a range of programmes to meet the needs of local business. This support was part funded by ERDF, under the Investment for Growth and Jobs Programme 2014-2020

Council led programmes include:

Entrepreneurship

We are keen to hear from entrepreneurs who want to start, build or scale new businesses or ideas; so if you have an idea for a new business, a new product, service, business model or a new market opportunity,  the Eastern Regional Office can help. We provide advice, guidance and financial assistance to support entrepreneurs through the business development process from ideation through to commercialisation.

We also work in partnership with councils, local enterprise agencies, accelerators and further education colleges, providing early stage business startups with a growth pathway that ensures access to the right advice and support at each crucial stage of development.

Find out more about support for Innovation on the innovateni.com website

Watch | Learn how Yolanda Coper, CEO of The Conscious Beauty Group, was inspired to start her own business and what support she received from Invest NI.
 

Invest Northern Ireland support

We work directly and indirectly with businesses across Northern Ireland.

Our approach to supporting businesses is based on three key elements:

  • Providing information and advice, directly and through a range of information services
  • Providing support to people wanting to set up their own business and helping new and existing businesses grow and move into new markets
  • Providing tailored support to businesses that can make the greatest contribution to increasing productivity, innovation and export growth in Northern Ireland

Ambition to Grow

If you're an innovative, ambitious micro to small, medium sized enterprise with the ambition to create great jobs, innovate your processes and sell your products or services outside Northern Ireland, our Ambition to Grow programme could be for you.

Regional Manager - Susan O'Kane

Susan is the Invest Northern Ireland Eastern Regional Office manager.

Susan has been with Invest NI since 2003 and has held a number of roles including working with the ICT sector and the textiles sector.

She also spent time on secondment to UKTI, Dusseldorf, Germany, selling the skills of Northern Ireland on a European basis.

You may also be interested in...

  • Funding through loans and equity

    We have six funds to help SMEs with high growth potential forge ahead.

Not sure that this support is right for you? Contact us and we can explore options for your business together.

Ambition to Grow

Contact our
Business support team
0800 181 4422
or
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