Business Month

Belfast has developed a niche specialism: it is a support centre for major international professional firms. Two Big Four accountancy firms – Deloitte and EY – two major law firms – Allen and Overy as well as Herbert Smith Freehills – plus recruitment agency Alexander Mann Solutions and financial services firm FinTrU have all recently opened […]

Northern Ireland is experiencing a new division – but this is not a division based on religion. Instead the new division separates the parts that are benefiting from the early stages of economic recovery from those that are not.  Examination of the most recent employment statistics are instructive.   Over the last year there has

We are all middle class now – aren’t we?  Actually a strong case can be made to argue that while there is a growing middle class in the emerging markets such as China and Brazil, in the UK and the rest of the Western world we are living through the decline and fall of the

Business Month – news – March 2014   Up and down   Up   For the eighth consecutive month, the majority of Northern Ireland surveyors have reported rising house prices.   UK construction output rose by 2% in December against the previous month. It is now 3.9% above the recessionary trough, but 12.2% below its

Northern Ireland has a small population, with the second lowest average income per head of any part of the UK.  It also has a weak private sector and an excessive dependence on government spending.  That combination of factors means that our economy can get stronger only if we focus on export sales – to Great

Bus Month February 2014    Up and down   Up   Gross mortgage lending in the UK has risen to its highest level since 2007.  The December figure was £17bn, the highest for a December in six years and up 49% in a year.   Construction sector activity in Northern Ireland rose in the third

By the year 2025, Belfast will be one of the world’s 20 richest cities in the world, measured by GDP per capita.  That at least is the prediction of the highly respected consultancy firm McKinsey’s in a report published two years ago.  The potential rise of Belfast in terms of wealth and influence is an

Up   House prices in Northern Ireland will rise 4% in 2014, predicts the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.  UK house prices are expected to rise 8% and London’s 11%.   Down   Inflation fell from 2.2% in October to 2.1% in November, marginally above the Bank of England target rate of 2%.   Factory

£250m capital spending reallocations   Finance minister Simon Hamilton has reallocated £250m of public expenditure that cannot be spent as previously approved.  This includes £80m of potential revenue underspends in the current financial year and £115m of capital spending freed-up by the delays on the construction of the new A5 Londonderry to Dublin road, which

The mantra has been that we have to move away from dependence on the public sector, to ‘rebalance our economy’.  Yet announcements of new Foreign Direct Investment in contact centres and support centres in Belfast have led to an inevitable question – have we merely moved from being a fairly high waged public sector services

Progress on the establishment of enterprise zones in Northern Ireland will continue says finance minister Simon Hamilton, despite the withdrawal by environment minister Mark H. Durkan of the Planning Bill.   Amendments to the Planning Bill had been tabled by Peter Weir of the DUP that would have  enabled the First Minister Peter Robinson and

Up and down   Northern Ireland’s employment rate rose by 0.1% to 66.7% in the quarter ending August. The UK rate rose by 0.3% to 71.7%.   UK retail sales rose by 2.2% in the year ending September.   Construction activity in Northern Ireland rose for the first time since 2007 according to the latest