The Northern Ireland economy received a welcome boost yesterday with the announcement by a North American company that it intends to create 60 “high quality” jobs in a £6.7m investment in Belfast.

BTI Systems, a Canadian headquartered telecommunications company, is to establish a European headquarters and software engineering centre of excellence in the city.

The investment, which has been offered support of £660,000 by Invest NI, was welcomed by the Economy Minister, Arlene Foster.

BTI Systems, a global supplier of intelligent service edge solutions, will recruit the staff over the next three years. Intelligent service edge solutions include the development of systems for the delivery of high bandwidth voice, video and data communications.

Speaking at a Press conference at Invest NI headquarters in Belfast, Mrs Foster said the creation of 60 “high quality” software software engineering posts would deliver an additional £2.3m a year into the local economy in terms of salaries.

She said: “This project will provide high value career opportunities and contribute to Northern Ireland’s growing ICT sector. It is particularly pleasing to secure the project in such difficult global economic conditions that have already seen some investors opt to defer their growth plans.

“Today’s announcement is positive news which strongly reinforces Northern Ireland’s reputation as a cost competitive location for investment by international firms seeking to grow their businesses, particularly in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.

Gregory Koss, chairman and CEO of BTI Systems, who was in Belfast for yesterday’s event, said the province offered “many advantages” as a regional hub.

He said: “The BTI Systems Belfast headquarters will be our main centre of operation in Europe, bringing us closer to new and existing customers and enabling us to continue our rapid growth in the EMEA region.”

BTI Systems specialises in products which enable the transport of data at high speed, primarily via fibre optic networks.