North First Minister Designate Michelle O’Neill has welcomed the announcement that a delegation of influential business leaders will visit Northern Ireland later this month.
U.S. Special Envoy Joe Kennedy III announced the visit on Monday.
Ms. O’Neill said the visit will be another opportunity to showcase the huge “economic potential and the unique opportunities that we have here through access to the EU and British markets."
And she added: U.S. companies have been instrumental for two decades in creating thousands of jobs here and helping to develop local businesses as centers of excellence in many areas of technology.
“Continuing to attract investment and creating good jobs for the next generation should be the joint mission for us all in political leadership and delegations like this are central to that.
“It’s now time to move forward. Rightly, public expectations are that those elected to the Assembly last May will get on with the job. Time is of the essence. I want to see the Assembly, Executive and North/South structures restored in a matter of weeks. Not a month longer can go by with nobody at the wheel.”
Head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, Jayne Brady, welcomed the announcement.
She said: “When President Biden came here in April, he spoke of plans for a trade delegation and this announcement reflects the continued commitment of both President Biden and Special Envoy Kennedy to showcasing this place as an attractive location for U.S. investors.
“This is another significant opportunity for our key economic sectors as well as for our academic, cultural, creative and tourism industries.
"The delegates attending are some of the most innovative, influential, and successful U.S. business leaders to have ever visited us, and I look forward to welcoming them here and showing them everything we have to offer.”
Special Envoy Kennedy confirmed that the Honorable Thomas P. DiNapoli, Comptroller, State of New York, Mark Hartney, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, John Murphy, President and Chief Financial Officer, The Coca-Cola Company, and Tim Sweeney, President and Chief Executive Officer, Liberty Mutual Insurance, will be joining the delegation which will arrive on October 24.
