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President of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce John Moore and Belfast City Centre Manager Andrew Irvine met with Finance Minister Sammy Wilson MP MLA to discuss how the public and private sectors can work together to help retailers face a challenging year ahead in 2010.  

‘Belfast Chamber of Trade and Commerce works closely with our partners in Belfast City Centre Management, Belfast City Council and Belfast Visitor and Convention Bureau to ensure that the city remains a premier visitor location for those from near and far,” said Chamber President John Moore.

“It is thanks to this partnership that Belfast’s retailers have enjoyed a good Christmas period. We are not out of the woods however and there remain significant obstacles for our sector, which employs some 13% of the workforce in Northern Ireland. Among these are the unreasonably tight lending conditions imposed by banks. While no-one wants to return to the bad old days of loose lending, the current attitude of certain banks appears to put a number of viable established businesses, and the jobs of those they employ, at risk,” he added.

‘I am confident that the ongoing close co-operation between the public and private sector will ensure that Belfast continues to attract visitors and I urged the Minister to do as much as he could to support this. I also asked the Minister to remind banks that it was in their interest to ensure that the retail and wider business community flourished.”

Andrew Irvine, Belfast City Centre Manger, who is also Chair of the Association of Town Centre Management in Ireland outlined the importance of providing a statutory framework to facilitate private sector investment in town centres.

“There are already over 100 towns and cities across the UK and Ireland who, under legislation existing in GB and RoI, have successfully implemented schemes such as Business Improvement Districts, Tax Incremental Financing and Supplementary Business Rates. These have delivered tailored made solutions to local issues in their respective town and city centres.  The results of such initiatives are clear to anyone visiting cities like Edinburgh, Liverpool and Dublin.”

John Moore added “It is important that we in Belfast make sure that our City Centre retains its position as a premier location for visitors and the introduction of a statutory framework for private sector investment is a vital step in this direction.”

 “While Town and City Centre Regeneration is primarily the responsibility of the DSD, there are important considerations for DFP from a revenue collection point of view which we briefed the Minister on.”