Potential new inward investors are deferring business decisions as violence flares on the streets of Northern Ireland, industry and community leaders have warned.
Ugly clashes between the two communities in Belfast have cast a shadow over several possible inward investment projects and may jeopardise up to 400 new jobs for the city, according to industry sources.
Investment bodies are anxious that images of rioting and unrest at a primary school in north Belfast will undermine continuing campaigns to reposition Northern Ireland as an attractive location for businesses to set up operations.
Mr Brendan Mullan, chief executive of Investment Belfast, is concerned that the unrest could sow seeds of doubt in the minds of potential investors. "The image of Belfast is only as good as its last CNN headline. The street violence does not give would-be investors confidence to come to Belfast.
"We have everything to offer investors from our telecoms infrastructure to our attractive, available workforce, but investors who see violent images of Northern Ireland are going to be harder to convince," Mr Mullan said.
He believes that Belfast's attraction as an investment location will prove to be a more long-lasting image than that of rioting carried in the media, but says that, in the short-term, Belfast could suffer.
According to the North Belfast Partnership Board, a community-based regeneration and reconciliation body, tensions between the two communities makes it as difficult for existing businesses to reinvest as for new business to make investment decisions.
Mr Murdo Murray, chief executive of the Partnership Board, based in the North City Business Centre, said the ongoing unrest makes life difficult for everyone in the area. The business centre boasts dozens of flourishing small businesses, and although operating at maximum capacity, it has a waiting list of firms queuing up for units. Earlier in the week, one episode of sporadic violence forced some organisations to cancel events and caused concern among the tenants of the centre. According to Mr Murray, this does not reflect the support of the local community for new business investment or the potential the area offers.
Not far from the North City Business Centre is one of north Belfast's most recent and most significant new investors, TeleTech Holdings, the American e-commerce company which just over a year ago promised to create 900 jobs in the city.
Helicopters were flying overhead and RUC Land Rovers were close by yesterday as the firm's employees made their way to its new multi-million pound call centre on a site in the Duncairn Gardens area of Belfast.
The American group had second thoughts about moving into Northern Ireland before it came to north Belfast and, according to people in the area, has been concerned by unrest during the summer in the locality.
Investment Belfast is now worried that potential investors will also have renewed doubts about the city. "We are dealing with three potential investors, one of whom is going to north Belfast.
"Two of these American firms have now both declined to come over to finalise investment arrangements and we think only one of these can possibly be rescued at this stage. The third, destined for north Belfast, is still in talks. We think it will come through, but the seeds of doubt have been sown."
