The head of Invest NI has said that foreign businesses are considering setting up in Northern Ireland due to its unique dual market access situation.
When the transitional period following the United Kingdom leaving the EU ended at the start of this year, thousands of businesses across the UK had to operate under different rules regarding trade. UK businesses exporting to the EU now face new charges and regulatory barriers that have made some businesses no longer financially viable and caused serious supply chain disruption.
Part of the arrangement the UK reached with the EU includes a specific Northern Ireland prototcol designed to protect the rights enshrined in the Good Friday agreement. As a result, a trade border has effectively been created between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with items moving into NI now subject to checks as they could find their way into the EU.
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While this has led to many businesses in Great Britain stopping deliveries to Northern Ireland altogether, it has apparently raised a lot of interest with large foreign companies. One US life sciences firm with over 10,000 staff and other large firms have been said to be looking at setting up in Northern Ireland in the near future.
Setting up here would give a US firm access to export freely to both Great Britain and the EU single market. Northern Ireland also has a direct transatlantic data link from Coleraine to several major European and US cities, and has ample space at the Atlantic Link Enterprise Campus in Coleraine for major data centre investment. With Northern Ireland's high quality of life and local vaccination programmes also running efficiently, it could become a more tempting location for companies to invest in.
Source: Belfast Telegraph
