Republican News · Thursday 12 December 2002

Building the island economy for all

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JOANNE CORCORAN continues her series on the all-Ireland implementation bodies with an examination of the work of InterTradeIreland

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So you want to start making the all-Ireland economy a reality, where do you start? For republicans, the all-Ireland dimension was a vital part of the Good Friday Agreement. Getting agreement from the other parties to set up all Ireland institutions was no easy matter. So making them work would be an even greater task.

In December 1999, the Trade and Business Development Body came into being. Three years later, operating as InterTradeIreland, this body runs over 25 separate projects and is making a difference at a range of levels. It is convincing not just the island's business community, but the other economic agencies, political parties and ordinary communities of the value of developing all-Ireland strategies in trade and economic development.

Sinn Féin's Robbie Smyth is one of twelve members appointed to its board. Six each were appointed from North and South, respectively. Although a Dubliner, Robbie, as Sinn Féin's chosen board member, was one of the Six-County appointees.

Except for suspension periods, ITI has met 11 times a year and has continued to expand its activities since it began. It has built a headquarters in Newry and is beginning to establish itself as a dynamic economic agency.

InterTradeIreland's marketing blurb includes the claim that it is, "committed to enhancing competitiveness by encouraging information share, joint marketing initiatives, joint R&D and other ventures as well as maximising the potential of e-business across the island.

"With a remit unique in Europe, InterTradeIreland is a world class reference point for all matters relating to trade and business development in Ireland, North and South - a centre of excellence for enterprise".

Phoblacht asked Robbie Smyth was this just nice sounding propaganda and where was the proof of InterTrade filling what seems like a tall order?

Smyth says one of the first initiatives taken by ITI was to get out on the road and listen to business, to the other development agencies, associations, interest groups and local communities to hear what they thought needed to be done. Their wish list was, according to Robbie, "a long one and included the obvious deficiencies plaguing economic development, including the need for infrastructural investment in roads, rail, power, and telecommunications. Support for tax harmonisation on the island and an all-island currency was strong too".

Smyth says that "this market intelligence along with our own expert studies into the barriers to trade and the input of the growing cutting edge team of professionals being assembled at InterTrade by chief executive Liam Nellis, culminated in the creation of a three-year corporate strategy.

"Our aim was simply to fill the gap in service provision between the economic agencies in the Six Counties and 26 Counties efficiently and effectively.

"For example, in both the Six and 26 Counties, the agencies like the IDA, Enterprise Ireland, Shannon Development and what was then LEDU and the Six-County Industrial Development Board, had never sat down together and discussed what they wanted as a whole on the island. InterTrade has created a forum where there can be an interchange of ideas and polices and ultimately an end to wasting resources, with agencies having no excuse for not collaborating and pooling knowledge"

The Irish Benchmarking Forum is one of the positive outcomes of the Agency Forum and involves all the agencies pooling knowledge and information and knowledge that will help their client companies perform better, which means, according to Smyth, "more jobs and more money flowing into local communities".

"The body is vital," Robbie continues. "Before we came into being, about 25% of Six-County exports were going down to the 26 Counties and only 4% of exports were going the other way. It was madness, because the whole country should have been competing internationally, and instead, bodies such as what is now Invest Northern Ireland, in the Six Counties, were looking at the IDA in the 26 Counties as a competitor. It was going to take a lot of knocking heads together.

Robbie says that ITI planned to act as "knowledge carriers, knowledge channels and knowledge capital.

"First we acquired knowledge capital. InterTrade is investing in research into the all-Ireland economy, and into all-Ireland trade statistics. We wanted to promote all-island trade by creating business capability and competitiveness, but we aimed to add value to the work being carried out by the existing development agencies."

The body wants to lead the development of the island economy through "distinctive knowledge-based interventions" which will produce significant returns in the areas of cross-border trade and business development.

Successes

ITI has made a number of widely recognised breakthroughs.

"We have brought a lot of people together," Robbie says. "For example, there are two separate software associations in the Six Counties and 26 Counties, and we brought them together for their first meeting."

"We have slowly become a presence. We established what had to be done, like innovation and development being needed in the northwest of the country, and we were the first to suggest that benchmarking be used by companies on both sides of the border. The business community has been completely on board.

"In terms of eroding the border, ITI has done good work," Robbie says. 'We are running practical schemes such as 'Focus' (moving graduates from the North into placements in the South) and 'Fusion' (placing graduates into workplaces where they will develop new products for a company) that aid business to trade across Ireland.

"Fusion was quite a big project for us. We realised that a lot of graduates were staying on in colleges to do their PhD's and weren't entering the workplace soon enough.

"We offered a number of these graduates places in businesses, which supported them while they were doing their PhD in a university across the border.

"There is also an Equity Network, which is developing venture capital links across Ireland and is helping to develop indigenous business."

EquityNetwork also provides businesses with a wide range of information and advice, such as lists of venture capital firms interested in investing in Ireland on both sides of the border, impartial advice on business plans and strategies, advice on becoming investor ready, and links to agencies and firms providing financial and advisory support.

Over the next year, ITI will be producing the first trade statistics for Ireland as well as the first island economy economic model, which will be able to accurately gauge the development of the economy as a whole.

"One of our next big projects is setting up a website driven database which will act as a directory of college student research material. It will make it easier for businesses on both sides of the border to access the wealth of knowledge in specialist categories all over the island," Robbie says.

Room for improvement

Robbie is aware that despite its achievements, ITI has much to develop.

"ITI could take over a substantial amount of the work of Enterprise Ireland and Invest Northern Ireland and this is ultimately where the agency should develop. The argument in favour of an all-Ireland economy has been won; the problem is still who is the new economy being built for? We need to show to the communities most affected by the conflict, those most underdeveloped and deprived, that we can make a difference.

"Really there should be one agency that deals with all the indigenous businesses in Ireland, and ITI could fill this role.

"However," Robbie adds, "there are a number of difficulties in the way. The business will is there, but we need an all-Ireland currency and tax regime and so on. There is a demand for it. In the 26 Counties, we are still pushing for the government to all-Ireland proof any new legislation or policies. Given their difficulty equality and poverty proofing, it will take some time to make the all-Ireland agenda more real."

ITI is continuing its work despite the recent Assembly suspension, but it needs the Good Friday Agreement to be fully implemented, and the peace process to continue for it to be successful.