The SDLP's economic spokesman, Mr Sean Farren, said there was scope for the doubling, even tripling, of cross-Border trade with the establishment of the North-South ministerial council.
Mr Farren stressed that mutual advancement would accrue from common trading tariffs and procedures. He also outlined the need for common postal, telecommunication and transport systems.
He admitted: "Envious looks have often been cast southwards where announcement after announcement of fresh investment have followed with almost tedious repetition."
Delegates were told the North's tourist industry could benefit from an all-Ireland approach. Mr Farren hoped for an international joint marketing strategy.
An SDLP Assembly member, Dr Alasdair McDonnell, said setting up the North-South council would remove a lot of obstacles that had been placed there artificially over the last 70 years.
In the party's debate on reform of the health service, delegates came out strongly against the British government's green paper proposing change in the North's Department of Heath and Social Services. An Assembly member, Mr Mark Durkan, said no structural alterations should be made to the service until the Assembly and the public had debated their full implications.
Another Assembly member, Dr Joe Hendron, cited research on infant mortality which showed that Northern children born into families whose main breadwinner was skilled or unskilled had a 20 per cent higher mortality rate in their first year than children from professional or managerial backgrounds. "We are acutely aware of the inequalities in health. There has been great suffering," he said.
Dr Hendron called for the expansion of the community psychiatric nursing service to meet the increasing demand.