3% of private NI firms in city

PRIVATE enterprise in Londonderry is at a lower ebb than anywhere in Northern Ireland outside West and North Belfast with just 3 per cent of the province’s registered businesses located here.

By The Newsroom

Published 29th Mar 2012, 16:11 BST

Despite Londonderry’s second city status just 2,205 of Northern Ireland’s registered businesses are located here compared with 6,610 (Fermanagh and South Tyrone) and 5,095 (West Tyrone) in less populous areas.

Finance Minister Sammy Wilson revealed the lower per capita business level in Londonderry in response to an Assembly Question.

The figures refer to active businesses in Northern Ireland by Parliamentary Constituency at January 2012.

“Where a business has more than one local unit (site) the location of the business is based on the postcode of the Head Office reporting for all local units within Northern Ireland,” the Minister explained.

Multinationals, of which there were 795 active in Northern Ireland at January 2012, were not counted.

Northern Ireland Sammy Wilson