Despite its bad media image, Northern Ireland proves to be a good place to do business

"Back at company headquarters in Houston, Tex., they simply had no idea about how productive Northern Ireland could be."

Charlie Grant, who made this observation, is proud of his native province and his home town, Londonderry, where he runs the National Supply Company's plant which produces oil wellhead valves. A subsidiary of the huge Armco group, National Supply has a string of overseas plants, but its Londonderry factory is the only plant it started from scratch outside the continental United States. The houston management liked the work ethic they encountered and thought the authorities were very professional in their dealings. They took Grant on as their first Ulster employee in August 1979.

"We took over an existing government-owned factory, and produced our first valve in MArch 1980," Grant recalls. "I simply do not encounter any problems stemming from politics, religion or civil strife. My headaches are all the normal industrial ones--like the big slump in the U.S. oil market last year--just the same as if I were running a plant in Nebraska."

Charlie Grant doesn't skirt the issue and neither do most executives in the province, either native-born, like Grant, or American expatriates working in some of the 28 U.S. companies which have invested over $1.7 billion in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland's international image is bad and far worse than it deserves. Against the necessarily condensed and thus distorted image projected on the TV screens and in the world's headlines in recent years, the story is about innovative and resilient industry, fighting back with high productivity and generally exemplary labor relations against something which has caused them far greater concern than political violence in recent years--an exceptionally long and deep recession and very difficult market conditions. During this period, Northern Ireland's index of industrial productivity has risen by 34 percent--precisely double the 17 percent rise for the United Kingdom as a whole.

Noel Irwin, General Manager of the Hughes Tool Company's Belfast plant and a corporate Vice President, put it succinctly:

"As far as incoming investors are concerned--if they've got a good product and the ability to market it and if they can't produce it in Northern Ireland and make a profit, then they simply should not be in business."

A crucial difference exists between Northern Ireland and most other job-hungry reigons around the world with development agencies seeking U.S. investment. Although it is an important agricultural region and a net food exporter with a wealth of opportunities for further food processing ventures--Northern Ireland is not primarily seeking industrial development for a predominantly agrarian population with no traditions of manufacture, but new job opportunities for communities in which there has been for decades a strongly developed work ethic and which are already imbued with industrial disciplines and skills. Taking the leading role

Taking the leading role in the drive to attract new investment to Northern Ireland is its "one stop" agency, the Industrial Development Board (IDB), which was set up in 1982 to combine under one roof functions previously spread over several government agencies.

The IDB, which is represented in eight offices across the United States, is now the Northern Ireland authorities' single interface with potential inward investors and industrial newcomers to the province, set up to help new ventures into being and to nurture their development. It has funds available to take a launching equity stake in such projects--with a buy-back option for its partners once any venture is headed for success. The IDB offers 30 percent grants towards the cost of building and equipping plants, with discretionary powers to increase these to 50 percent. They can be free of employment conditions. It also offers generous training grants, including funding the training of Ulster workers at parent plants in the United States; relocation expenses of incoming key personnel; management incentive grants towards the recruitment of top-grade executives; and total exemption from real estate taxes.

A very favorable corporate tax system operates in Northern Ireland. Further, the IDB is able to refund up to 80 percent of the corporate tax actually paid by a corporation for a period of up to 20 years. This is particularly attractive to the kinds of profitable enterprise which Northern Ireland seeks. High-technology companies, in particular, can also benefit from grants of up to 50 percent towards the costs of research and development.

With the IDB's large and varied stock of ready-for-use advance factories and fully serviced sites for custom-built premises, projects can be brought into production remarkably quickly after the initial investment decision is made.

AVX In. of Great Neck, N.Y., picked the university town of Coleraine as the site for its first European plant to make multi-layer ceramic capacitors. Within four years of its start-up, AVX Coleraine has captured 25 percent of the entire European market and is supplying 95 percent of the parent company's business there.

Despite all the rapid changes in products and processes in AVX's first four years, during which unit costs have been reduced by 20 percent each year, there have been no disputes or stoppages.

Du Pont can make the same claim for a period more than six times as long, for in the 25 years of its Derry plant it has not had so much as a one-day strike.

Northern Ireland's educational standards are among the highest in the United Kingdom, and its, 1,400 schools enjoy a teacher/pupil ratio much higher than the European norm.

More than 500 engineers in various specialties graduate each year from the long-established Queen's University of Belfast, the New University of Ulster at Coleraine, and the Ulster Polytechnic a few miles outside Belfast. Almost all of these, together with other graduates in non-engineering fields, have practical "hands on" experience in comuter techniques and automation and all three institutions are closely geared to the needs of industry, not only in the skills of the people they graduate but in other types of support. There are nearly 30 other higher education institutes across Northern Ireland, and the government runs a chain of apprentice training centers to meet industry's needs both for young recruits and for the retaining of adult workers as skill requirements change.

The infrastructure necessary to support both thriving industry and modern family life is already in place. There is direct dialing from every phone in the provine to almost 120 countries, a large telex network and more than 1,000 data transmission terminals. The road network is comprehensive, uncongested, and fast. Seven airlines operate scheduled services out of Belfast International Airport. More than 80 shipping lines serve the five seaports.

The latest U.S. company to establish operations in Northern Ireland is Data Design Laboratories of Cucamonga, Calif. Data-Design's printed circuit board (PCB) subsidiary, Aeroscientific Corp., acquired in January the formerly German-owned Irlandus Circuits Ltd., a high-tecnology but low-volume producer of PCBs in the new city of Craigavon 30 miles from Belfast.

Thomas Beiseker, Data-Design's chief executive officer, observed, "Both Aeroscientific and Data Design have been very impressed with the people of Northern Ireland. This includes management, technical personnel, plant personnel and support services--chartered accountant, lawyers and bankers. We believe Northern Ireland has all the ingredients to be very successful in world markets . . . . Aeroscientific expects to grow into other high-technology areas if Northern Ireland does provide all that we believe it can, and will."

Joe Williams, Works Manager at DuPont's 1,200-employee facility at Maydown, is dismissive of the socalled "Troubled" that have to preocupied the media for years. "They have never caused us any problems here. People have left their differences, if any, at the factory gate and we've had no problems in the plant. I simply couldn't believe it when I first came here."

Du Pont is only one of several large American companies already established in the provine. Ford has a surburban belfast factory producing all the carburetors and distributors used by its European plants.

GM's Fisher Body division took the plunge in the mid-1970s and opened a factory on the east side of Belfast to produce seat belts. Top management in Detroit was so impressed with the quick start-up and on-time performance of the venture that, Despite the provincial image, Belfast was quickly selected as the site for a second GM factory, which produces other car body fittings.

Hyster, the Portland, Ore. for-lift truck maker, created a largely robotized plant in the new city of Craigavon, 30 miles from Belfast, in which it is producing a whole new range of trucks.

Some years ago American Brands took over the big, long-established tobacco enterprise, Gallahers, which has factories in Belfast and Ballymena. Both returned "brilliant" performances in profitability, according to the companyhs latest report.

In recent months, two separate Northern Ireland missions have toured the United States to acquaint American industrialists, bankers, investment decision makers, and media with its industrial and economic life. One was an all-party team of Northern Ireland politicians who spoke with one voice of the warmth of welcome--and the cooperation which incoming investors could be assured of finding, and of the province's need for new jobs. The other mission comprised 20 business leaders, bankers, academics, chamber of commerce representatives, and IDB officials, working together in the Northern Ireland partnership.

In the words of IDB chief executive Saxon Tate: "U.S. executives considering overseas expansion should come on over--and judge us on the facts."

COPYRIGHT 1984 U.S. Government Printing Office
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group