BELFAST BRIEFING:An investment with potential for 400 new jobs involves a powerful subliminal message

HOW MUCH is a simple handshake worth to the Northern Ireland economy these days?

When it comes to Duncan L Niederauer, it is apparently worth its equivalent weight in divine intervention. Niederauer is the chief executive officer of NYSE Euronext, a global operator of financial markets including the New York Stock Exchange. His handshake last week was the hottest commodity in Belfast – at least according to the North’s foremost political leaders.

Northern Ireland’s First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness passed up the chance to shake Pope Benedict XVI’s hand in Edinburgh in order to grasp the economic opportunities presented by Niederauer.

His company has just officially opened a Belfast office of NYSE Technologies, the technology arm of NYSE Euronext. It is an amazing coup for Northern Ireland to land the investment. The company operates only two other European technology centres, in Paris and London.

The investment, which was secured last year, has the potential to create up to 400 technology, operational and corporate jobs in the coming years. But the accumulative value of NYSE Technologies locating in Belfast lies in the subliminal message that it sends to other potential investors.

The fact that a leading equities exchange group, home to some of the world’s biggest companies, chooses Northern Ireland from a host of other possible locations sends out a powerful message.

Little wonder Robinson and McGuinness decided to stay at home and shake the hand of the man who just might decide to bring more jobs their way.

Nevertheless, it might be useful for them to have the pope on side. Robinson and McGuinness are keenly aware that it is going to take some kind of economic miracle to rescue Northern Ireland from the crisis it is facing.

The North has little choice but to undergo a Damascus-like conversion from being a public-sector dominated economy to one that is private-sector orientated. Many are going to have their faith in the Northern Ireland Executive strongly tested before the process is over. There are some who believe the answer to solving some of the most pressing economic problems could lie in the parable of the loaves and fishes.

The likes of Ilex, the Urban Regeneration Company for the Derry City Council area, believes that by recognising challenges, new opportunities will present themselves. In short, you have to work with what’s in front of you.

The fact it is behind a £6 million (€7.14 million) project to transform a former parade ground at a British military site in the city into a new community-inspired piazza shows it practices what it preaches.

Derry, which will be the UK City of Culture in 2013, has one of the highest rates of unemployment in Northern Ireland. In a bid to create a new economic future for the city, Ilex has drawn up a new regeneration plan, in partnership with the local community. According to Ilex chairman Roy McNulty, the “prize” could be “truly great”.

If the regeneration plan succeeds Derry could have an additional 12,500 jobs by 2020, which would pump an estimated £464 million in wages and profits into the local economy.

The regeneration plan is a roadmap that will set Derry on its way to becoming the city it aims to be in the future. It outlines ambitions to skill and train people, help them to find and keep jobs, increase and encourage students, and inspire new business start-ups. It contains innovative ideas to shape Derry’s future by encouraging it to become an eco-city that capitalises on the green economy.

The regeneration plan also outlines how the city could be transformed to put it at the forefront of 21st digital century technology.

Ilex says Derry’s key assets are “the place and its people”. But it is not just Derry that can lay claim to the value of place and people, as Niederauer and NYSE Euronext can attest. “Our experience with regard to operating in Northern Ireland has been very positive,” Niederauer said in Belfast last week.

That is an answer to some of Robinson and McGuinness’s prayers when it comes to sending the right message to potential investors on the eve of the next US-NI investment conference in Washington.