North Eastern Regional Office

Located at the Ecos Hub in Ballymena, Co. Antrim, our North Eastern Regional office works with businesses across the Mid & East Antrim Borough Council area.

The North Eastern Regional Office provides advice and support to potential entrepreneurs and start-ups within the region. It also works with businesses seeking to sell outside Northern Ireland for the first time, with a focus on Great Britain, the Republic of Ireland and beyond.

North Eastern Regional Office supported business performance

The North Eastern Regional Office works with businesses from a range of sectors; most notably Advanced Engineering & Manufacturing, Agri-Food, Digital & Creative Technologies, Life & Health Sciences and Tourism. 

Our support over the last five years, combined with the investments by local and international businesses, has the potential to realise investment of £79m in the region, and to create 454 new jobs.

More detail on our work in each specific council area is detailed below.

Council areas covered by the North Eastern Regional Office

Mid & East Antrim Borough Council

As a Statutory Partner in Putting People First, the Mid & East Antrim Borough Council community plan, we are committed to working in partnership with Mid & East Antrim Borough Council to help businesses grow and compete globally.

Over the past five years we have provided support of £16m to 224 businesses based in the Borough. This funding has the potential to deliver £79m of investment in the area and lead to the creation of 454 jobs.

You can find more detail on the business make-up of the area and our specific support in the following briefing:
Download the Invest Northern Ireland Council Briefing for the Mid & East Antrim Borough Council area (PDF)

Our support included over £800k of Local Economic Development funding to the council to support the development of a range of programmes to meet the needs of local business. This support was part funded by ERDF, under the Investment for Growth and Jobs Programme 2014-2020.

Council-led programmes include:

Entrepreneurship

We are keen to hear from entrepreneurs who want to start, build or scale new businesses or ideas; so if you have an idea for a new business, a new product, service, business model or a new market opportunity,  the North Eastern Regional Office can help. We provide advice, guidance and financial assistance to support entrepreneurs through the business development process from ideation through to commercialisation.

We also work in partnership with councils, local enterprise agencies, accelerators and further education colleges, providing early stage business startups with a growth pathway that ensures access to the right advice and support at each crucial stage of development

Find out more about support for Innovation on the innovateni.com website

Invest Northern Ireland support

We work directly and indirectly with businesses across Northern Ireland.

Our approach to supporting businesses is based on three key elements:

  • Providing information and advice, directly and through a range of information services
  • Providing support to people wanting to set up their own business and helping new and existing businesses grow and move into new markets
  • Providing tailored support to businesses that can make the greatest contribution to increasing productivity, innovation and export growth in Northern Ireland

Ambition to Grow

If you're an innovative, ambitious micro to small, medium sized enterprise with the ambition to create great jobs, innovate your processes and sell your products or services outside Northern Ireland, our Ambition to Grow programme could be for you.

Regional Manager - Des Gartland

Des has been in a Regional Manager role at Invest NI since 2008 and prior to this, spent 13 years in the private sector.

You may also be interested in...

  • Funding through loans and equity

    We have six funds to help SMEs with high growth potential forge ahead.

Not sure that this support is right for you? Contact us and we can explore options for your business together.

Ambition to Grow

Contact our
Business support team
0800 181 4422
or
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