Reaching across borders

After years of arguable neglect, the cross-border region is finally benefiting from new funding under five programmes innovated by the Centre for Cross Border Studies.

Launched in March of this year, these INTERREG-funded programmes, termed The Ireland/Northern Ireland Cross-

Border Co-operation Observatory, are aiming to make an enduring difference to the cross-border economy, helping it become more sustainable and self-reliant from now until 2011.

The main project of interest to owner managers is ‘Normal Business Restored’, which will look at the region’s economy to determine how it can be developed. It will be tendered in May.

Andy Pollack, director of the Centre for Cross Border Studies, says that the team that will take it on will ideally comprise an economist, a businessperson and maybe a geographer.

“They will spend a lot of time talking to businesspeople and doing case studies of businesses. It will be very accessible.”

Because the cross-border region is in a peripheral area – and after 30 years of conflict, with low development, high unemployment and low educational attainment being continual features – Pollack says the study will aim to identify those areas where it can develop.

He reiterates the point Stephen Kingon, chairman of Invest Northern Ireland, made in the 2009 Journal of Cross Border Studies in Ireland about the “introspection” of northern firms and their reluctance to delve into the attractive export market right on their doorstep, ie the South.

In its proposal for the Normal Business Restored project, the centre proposes three areas for action. The first is to look at cross-border shopping. While at present this is booming if you’re a northern-based retailer, it’s an unstable phenomenon, according to Pollack.

“It’s an economic distortion because of the slump in sterling. This isn’t real. It won’t last forever, so we need to find a way to make cross-border shopping robust, so businesspeople in the border region can make a sustainable living.”

Pollack says the study will be looking at how the border region’s micromarkets, apart from Newry, can be turned into efficient drivers of regional growth and development.

Microenterprise growth

The second area that will be given importance will converge on microenterprises – companies with fewer than 10 employees.

Pollak says microenterprises such as bakeries, guesthouses, trades and craft enterprises are the ones that are at the base of economic development in the border region.

“We want to look at how these enterprises can work better, can use the markets on the other side of the border and can learn from cross-border co-operation.

“Obviously, microenterprises feed off larger enterprises. Such enterprises are so important to the border region, and we must also look at other areas where there are microenterprises in Ireland and in Europe, such as cheesemakers in west Cork who sell into the French market, for example.”

He says we should be looking at the border regions in Europe such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany, where small family businesses are very advanced, knowing how to sell into urban markets.

Pooling of minds

The potential for business linkages, both north and south of the border, will also be a huge aspect of the project, Pollack argues. 

“It’s about finding someone with complementary technology and marketing expertise to work with firms to sell their products on the other side of the border and further afield.”

In the aforementioned 2009 Journal of Cross Border Studies in Ireland, David Dobbin, chief executive of United Dairy Farmers and chairman of InterTradeIreland, talked about how north-south economic collaboration could help bring Ireland out of the recession.

“Having the technology is not enough – you have to have critical mass to be able to compete globally. Both our economies are still very small in world terms, so by exploiting some of your neighbour’s capability you may be able to compete with mainland Europe or the US where the scale is much larger because of their much larger domestic markets,” explains Dobbin.

He also suggests that southern firms should be looking to the North as a low-cost supplier of raw materials, services, components  and sub-assembly.

“We’ve got to keep focused on the trade opportunities from north-south economic co-operation. We need to use the fact that there are two jurisdictions on the island as a competitive strength rather than a threat,” he says.

The tourism light

Tourism is the third area the Normal Business Restored project will hone in on. Says Pollack: “It’s looking at areas such as towns in the Republic that have done well with their festivals, for example, Bantry and Kilkenny. Why can’t Monaghan, Dundalk and Armagh do that as well?”

Green tourism is already a good example of how the cross-border region is capitalising on its natural resources. The ‘Greenbox’, covering the Leitrim and Fermanagh area, is emerging as Ireland’s first genuine ecotourism destination, says Pollack.

The Greenbox has a set of standards based on sound environmental practices, highlighting all that the region and its people have to offer. Ecotourism is travel which is small scale, low impact, culturally sensitive, community orientated, primarily nature based, educational and capable of broadening people’s minds.

Pollack concludes by saying that the overall research carried out will be all about making the all-island economy a reality, bringing down the barriers and making it easier for people to move across the border to live and work.

“It’s about helping to integrate the island economy and looking at how cross-border co-operation can help small firms expand their markets.”

This article first appeared in Owner Manager magazine.