EDF report a 'wake-up call' for business, say PwC

Business advisors, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), have described the recent report by the Economic Development Forum as a "wake-up call for action".

PwC’s Chief Economist, Philip McDonagh, said the report represented a consensus opinion on the challenges facing the local community.

He said: “This is a message from the social partners to local politicians and the wider community and their verdict on the impact of political instability and the breadth of the poverty gap should be clearly understood as the political parties begin their review of the Good Friday Agreement.”

Mr McDonagh also welcomed the opinion that a 10-year view of the economy was essential for recovery and regeneration and said that determining how Northern Ireland would tackle the challenges in the report must become a business, social and political priority.

He said: “When a key economic report refers to ‘appalling levels of poverty and ‘an erosion of the region’s competitiveness’, it is time to get up and work. Only the people of Northern Ireland can solve our own domestic problems and if we know how bad they are, we have the opportunity to work together to plan how to solve them.”

The report from the EDF warned that Northern Ireland’s private sector is not growing and has several fundamental weaknesses.

The report blamed poor productivity and low added-value jobs for restricting economic growth. It also stated that business expenditure on research and development was declining and the manufacturing exports had also declined for the second year running.

Business start-up rates were criticised as ‘inadequate’ and high electricity costs were said to be eroding regional competitiveness.

The report also identified several weaknesses in the local economy, including; lack of political stability; alarmingly high level of consumer debt; excessive business costs; ‘appalling’ levels of poverty and the ‘exorbitant’ cost of work-related injury and ill-health.

However, the report, the first review of progress against targets for improvement set in June 2002, said that earnings and employment levels in Ulster were rising and skills levels were also improving.

The EDF, which was set up in 1999 to advise Government Ministers on issues relating to the development of the economy, said Ulster has to work harder if the forum’s vision of significantly strengthening the economy by 2010 is to be achieved.

It stated that the economy had and ‘unhealthy reliance’ on the public sector and there was a need to grow the private sector significantly, by increasing productivity, more high-value jobs and more support for enterprise and entrepreneurial activity.

(KMcA)