A new £2.5m investment is creating over 130 new jobs for rural businesses in Derry and Strabane with 73 jobs already in place.
The funding is supporting 55 rural businesses with capital investment projects that are creating jobs and enhancing export potential.
The Rural Partnership’s Rural Business Investment Scheme has already provided successful applicants with help in training and marketing services aimed at promoting business growth in areas such as farm diversification, tourism, manufacturing and engineering.
Strabane-based Modular Building manufacturer, KES Group Ltd, is one local business to have secured funding from the scheme for the installation of state-of-the-art machinery and the creation of three new jobs as part of a larger recruitment drive.
Its managing director, Conor McCrossan said: “Purchasing this equipment will allow us to manufacture Structural Insulated Panels in-house which will not only increase our operational capacity but crucially improve the quality of our end products. Specific to the introduction of this equipment, we will be creating three jobs within the team, to include two regional sales managers and a production manager.”
Chair of the Local Action Group of the Derry and Strabane Rural Partnership (LAG), Councillor Jim McKeever said: “We were inundated with applications throughout each of the six rounds of funding, and we worked meticulously with applicants to guide them through each stage of the application process.
“This attention to detail has allowed our scheme to allocate all of our budget, as well as exceed our targets in terms of numbers of businesses supported and actual job creation.”
The funding is delivered under the NI Rural Development Programme (RDP) 2014 –2020, which is then funded by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) and the European Union.
For more information on the scheme visit: www.derrystrabane.com/RBIS
