Believe in Belfast

A city of Titanic ambition, Belfast regularly outperforms cities double its size in terms of innovation, invention, technology and investment.

Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce was established in 1783 by the founding fathers of Belfast who built our capital city and today the chamber continues to stimulate the Northern Ireland economy.

Rope and Linen are what made us famous but the ships we built made us legendary. Since then, Northern Ireland has been built by a nation of innovators, inventors, creatives and game-changers.

We are a small nation but when it comes to business we think big and our long list of achievements supports this. Our diverse and rich accolades and undertakings make us the perfect candidate to host the 2015 World Chambers Congress.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Nodder (NICC President)

Ann McGregor (NICC Chief Executive)

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Belfast: the UK’s bEst valuE CIty according to TripAdvisor6,948 vIsItor bEds in Belfast357 rEstauraNts & 1,039 bars

12 golf courses2 flIghts from Belfast to anywhere in the world90 mINutEs from DublinlowEst Cost of lIvINg in the UK (Mercer.com 2012)27 is the average agE of people living in Northern Ireland, we have one of the youNgEst populations in Europe.1.3m (the number of out of state tourIsts who visited Belfast last year)

RegION IN The UK

SAFeST(British Crime Survey 2011)

Other FACTS you may not know:

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Ernst and Young recently announced that Belfast is the UK’s most attractive city for foreign direct investment outside of London. In the last three years, Northern Ireland has won 7% of Foreign Direct Investment attracted to the UK, with only 2.8% of the population.

(Source: UKTI Inward Investment statistics 2007-2010)

We ARe

FOR

FOReIgN dIReCT INveSTmeNT

NUmBeR 1

London

Belfast

Dublin

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We ARe A

deSTINATION

FOR FINANCIAL SeRvICeS

Belfast is already established as one of the top 10 destination cities in the world for financial services, technologies and investments, ahead of key competitors such as Dublin, Glasgow, and Toronto and even major IT centres such as Bangalore and Kuala Lumpur.

(Source: OCO Consulting 2010)

TOp 10

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We SpIN OUT mORe

START UpS

ThAN ANYONe eLSe

In 2009/10, Northern Ireland’s universities had the highest number of ‘spin-out’ companies per institution, four times more than the UK average.

(Source: DTI)

hIgh TeCh

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We ARe

IN R&d AT A RATe OF KNOTS

Business expenditure on R&D increased by 76% in 2009 to £323.7million the highest rate of R&D investment on record in Northern Ireland, and there are now 42% more people employed within this sector.

INveSTINg

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We ARe INveSTINg IN The FUTURe ANd

TO The WORLd

£2bn per annum is invested in supporting the local economy.

Goods worth over £5 billion are now exported from Northern Ireland to virtually every continent including Mongolia, Antartic, Sakhalin Island and the Falklands.

expORTINg

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We BUILd

FOR LONdON

London Buses are manufactured in Ballymena by local company Wrightbus.

BUSeS

1 in 31 in 3

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30% OF The WORLd’S AIRCRAFT SeATS

BE Aerospace which is based in Kilkeel, a little fishing village in Northern Ireland manufactures 30% of the world’s aircraft seats.

mANUFACTUReWe

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We gIve

TO The WORLd

Bombardier, the world’s third largest civil aircraft manufacturer, employs over 5,000 people in Northern Ireland and 12 of every 15 Bombardier aircraft programmes are supplied in Belfast.

The Northern Ireland facility is the most diversified in the aerospace division. Northern Ireland is their centre for the wing design, development & manufacture of Bombardier’s C-Series. This constitutes an investment commitment to Northern Ireland by Bombardier of £520m.

WINgS

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We

COmpUTeRS

of the world’s computer drives has a part made by Seagate in Northern Ireland.

dRIve

1 in 51 in 5

N. IrelaNd

STARRING

Belfaststarring

N. IrelaNd

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We BRINg

BLOCKBUSTeRS TO LIFe

hOLLYWOOd

Queen’s University spin out company APT, has developed innovative sound compression technology that has been used in the production of Hollywood blockbusters such as Lord of the Rings, Finding Nemo and Titanic.

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We

pLANeTS

Cameras designed and manufactured by Andor Technology in Belfast were used by a team of UK, French and Swiss astronomers to discover 2 new Jupiter-sized planets.

dISCOveR

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We hAve

AmBITION

We built the most famous ship in the world using the most cutting edge engineering and shipbuilding skills of its time, the HMS Titanic.

We now have the largest Titanic Visitor Centre in the World.

TITANIC

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We ARe hOme TO

ANd deSIgNeRS

The moderN ejecTIoN seaT Sir James Martin

PorTable defIbrIllaTor Frank Pantridge

The moderN TracTor (massey fergusoN) Harry Ferguson

PNeumaTIc Tyres John Dunlop

The PeNalTy kIck IN soccer William Crum

INveNTORS

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We LIKe BeINg

Northern Ireland has delivered a number of world firsts in technology:

ImagINg - Andor Technology, Axis Three

audIo - DTS

EntErprisE sEarch - Sophia Search, Datactics

healThcare IT - Intelesens, Heartsine

securITy - CSIT, Tyco, Latens (acquired by Pace)

Telecoms - Intune Networks

mobIle Telecoms - Openwave, Aepona, mFormation

fINaNcIal TradINg TechNology - First Derivatives, NYSE Technologies

remoTe seNsors- Schrader

FIRST...

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OUR peOpLe ARe

LegeNdARY

lITerary greaTs

Cs lEwIs Author, The Lion, the Witch & the WardrobesEamus hEaNEy Poet, Playwright & Nobel Laureate

famous acTors

lIam NEEsoNKENNEth braNaghstEPhEN rEaCIaraN hINdsJamEs NEsbItt

sPorTINg legeNds

rory mCIlroy - GolferdarrEN ClarKE – GolfergraEmE mCdowEll GolfergEorgE bEst – FootballerEddIE IrvINE – Racing Driver

musIcal maesTros

vaN morrIsoNJamEs galwayPhIl CoultErgary lIghtbody (sNow Patrol)

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TO

mTV euroPeaN musIc awards 2011

world PolIce & fIre games 2013The third largest sporting event in the world outside the Olympics with 25,000 competitors and visitors.

Tall shIPs 2009 & 2015

rouNd The world clIPPer race 2012

IrIsh oPeN golf chamPIoNshIP 2012

hOST

NorN IroNNorthern Ireland

whaT’s The craIc? any news?

leT’s go for a swall let’s go for a drink

whaT abouT ye?how are you?

The craIc Is mIghTy! It’s great fun!

BeLFAST SLANgqUICK gUIde

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