abstract:Invest Northern Ireland (Invest NI) is Northern Ireland's regional economic development agency. It is a non-departmental public body (NDPB) of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI).
Many businessmen praise InvestNorthernIreland, the agency charged with regional development, for pulling in high-quality inward investment, especially in finance, technology and business services.
The minister said this was not true, adding that nearly 60% of InvestNorthernIreland funding in the previous programme for government period went to small and medium-sized businesses.
Mr Kingon added that Northern Ireland's business sector and the new economic development agency InvestNorthernIreland - being created to replaced the small business funder LEDU and the Industrial Development Board - faced a difficult year.