Exports are the saviour of the Northern Ireland economy. But don't take my word for it, just speak to the Executive, our local economists and anyone else who cares about the businesses of Northern Ireland.

Great to see then that the amount of goods and services heading to buyers outside these shores increased by a whopping 9.5% in the year up to the end of September last year.

That figure is astounding for a number of reasons, not least because in that time the global economy has nosedived like a hungry kingfisher (pardon the nature references these days but your correspondent has been watching a lot of David Attenborough documentaries).

That means Northern Ireland's companies have managed to forge their way into the supplier lists of companies around the world at a time when most have been holding tight to the order book.

Now, there are plenty of questions to be asked in terms of how our exports compare to, say 2007 when the economy was in rude health and some would even say that our exports to the core market of the European Union are down on 10 years ago, but aside from these niggles with the new economic eye in the sky provided by DETI, the news is at least not downbeat.

And as if that weren't enough, who should show on a crisp Tuesday morning but Vince Cable, a man who's very surname is key to the export sector (cable is the term used by currency traders to describe the sterling/US dollar exchange rate).

He was in town to launch the new Northern Ireland Advanced Composites -amp; Engineering Centre which sounds very grand and indeed is, being a formal coming together of some of the best brains in the local aerospace industry, one which accounts for a substantial amount of exports.

Hopefully he'll go away with an idea of just how skilled and ambitious those who inhabit the aerospace and every other area of the local economy are and persuade the top dogs at the Treasury to give us the big break we've been eagerly waiting for.

As a man who seems to see things in a fairly black and white way and tends to speak his mind you'd like to think he sees the rationale behind allowing us to cut our corporation tax and compete on a level playing field with our neighbours.

If that happens DETI will be able to set up an inward investment monitor to go alongside it's export watch.