Northern Ireland is a hub for high growth SMEs, according to research from the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC). Northern Ireland is home to the most More business start-ups there get to £1m in turnover within three years of trading than any other part of the country.
About 10% of Northern Irish business get to the £1m point, compared to 7.9% in London, 6.2% in England as a whole and 2.2% in Cumbria.
Professor Mark Hart of the ERC explains some of the reasons: “Part of the story in Northern Ireland is long-standing policy infrastructure, a commitment by government and its agencies to invest in the enterprise agenda from startup through to growth.
Local policy, through the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment and its agency Invest NI, working with partners on the ground, seems to be making a difference.
There is certainly a stability of policy in the home nations, as opposed to England, where policy can change dramatically between governments. We may be seeing the success of that stability coming through in some of the headline statistics.”
