Invest NI has offered £747m to support business formation, expansion and innovation projects over the past six years, its latest review has revealed.

The Performance Information Report covers the six years from Invest NI's establishment in 2002 up to 2008, and provides analysis of the agency's performance and its clients

The economic development agency said just over half of the amount was spent on projects in areas of economic disadvantage in the province, and the funding translated to £514 per adult in Northern Ireland.

Invest NI's chief executive, Leslie Morrison, said: “The period under review saw changes in the political landscape of Northern Ireland which had a positive knock-on effect on the economy. While we are looking back from the midst of a severe global economic downturn, it is encouraging to have evidence of the effectiveness of our support to date and reassurance that our approach is sound.”

He added: “Although large inward investment projects may receive more attention, the reality is that Invest NI has offered more assistance towards the formation and growth of locally owned businesses.”

During the period locally-owned businesses accounted for 90% of Invest NI’s clients, with indigenous clients offered assistance worth almost £400m — 53% of the total.

The agency also assisted 500 new locally-owned businesses with the potential for significant growth, while 18,000 individuals got help to set up businesses focused on trading within Northern Ireland.

The report also showed that the agency supported 89 new inward investment projects and 110 projects by overseas investors already established here. In total these projects represented £1.3bn of planned investment and were expected to create almost 16,000 jobs, while safeguarding nearly 12,000 existing jobs, it said.

More than £285m was offered to support business innovation in the period under review, said Mr Morrison.

However, he added that is too simplistic to attribute the success of a client company solely to Invest NI’s input.

“Obviously many factors influence business and economic performance, only one of which is Invest NI's support,” said Mr Morrison. “It is telling, however, to note that Invest NI clients are responsible for 92% of manufacturing exports, 90% of business expenditure on R&D and have GVA per head that is 36% higher than the Northern Ireland average. Particularly encouraging has been the strong performance of small and medium sized enterprises in increasing their export sales by 40% during the period,” he said.

Mr Morrison highlighted that the average time taken to process a request for assistance to an offer of support has reduced during the last two years from 43 to 25 days.

He added that Invest NI had helped secure new inward investment from international businesses such as Citibank, Liberty Information Technology, Allstate Insurance, Tech Mahindra, Fujitsu, NYSE Euronext, 3PAR and Mformation Technologies over the six years.

“Many of these are creating higher quality jobs, especially within the ICT sector where 93% of new jobs will be paid salaries above the Northern Ireland average. Other investments such as those by HCL Technologies, Firstsource and LBM are providing the opportunity for many individuals to access employment opportunities within a service based environment, and the mechanism for Northern Ireland to ‘catch-up’ with other regions of the UK,” he said.

“Clearly, the economic downturn will have an adverse impact on the investment plans of many businesses, including financial services, an area in which we have been successful in attracting recent inward investment. However, new opportunities will emerge.

sross@belfasttelegraph.co.uk