A major business conference being hosted in Belfast next month and supported by Airtricity is set to provide a forum from which the opinions of Northern Ireland’s business leaders on the opportunities for export growth will be presented to government.
The Growing Something Brilliant Conference, hosted by Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce in partnership with Airtricity, Northern Ireland’s second largest energy provider, is a free business conference taking place at Titanic Belfast on 19 September 2013.
The conference is expected to attract over 300 business leaders from across all industries. The dynamically-different conference format, which is broken out into interactive workshop zones, is designed to provide Northern Ireland businesses with a platform from which to gain support, seek inspiration and benefit from networking opportunities to stimulate growth in their business.
As well as enabling businesses to learn and share, corporate leaders will have their voices heard by government ministers and representatives from the Departments of Finance & Personnel, Employment & Learning, and Enterprise Trade & Investment, as well as senior economists. The outputs of the conference will be fed in to a special report ‘Exporting: The Challenge’, compiled by Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce, which will be presented to government immediately after the conference.
David Manning, Director of Corporate Affairs at Airtricity (pictured right with Chamber President Mark Nodder), said: “Airtricity is extremely proud to be supporting the Chamber’s ‘Growing Something Brilliant’ conference. This conference is an important opportunity for business leaders in Northern Ireland to engage with government and senior economists on the key challenges facing them and the steps that business want to see taken that will enable them to grow.
“The Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce has already identified that there are only 1700 active exporters in the country – less than 2 per cent of the country’s business base and significantly behind the rest of the UK. Through this conference we hope that we will explore how businesses themselves can help get the Northern Ireland economy moving again, and that’s why we’re proud to support this major Chamber drive.”
Mark Nodder, President of Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce said: “Growing Something Brilliant is the private sector’s response to helping businesses grow. We want to inspire more businesses to set up, grow and export by looking at what has already been achieved by the business community in Northern Ireland, and sharing the good news that is out there.
“We must also celebrate the successes of our smaller companies and first-time exporters, to encourage others to follow suit. There is business to be won abroad, by companies of all sizes and all sectors however we need to inspire these companies to grow.
“By growing something brilliant we can develop our economy, driven by our own energy, commitment and ambition.”
For more information on Growing Something Brilliant – a free business conference to inspire businesses to accelerate their growth, visitwww.growingsomethingbrilliant.com