Sunak will use Biden visit to Belfast to boost investment
RISHI SUNAK has sought to capitalise on Joe Biden’s visit to Northern Ireland this week with an investment drive he says will deliver on the “promise” of the Good Friday Agreement.
The Prime Minister said that delivering economic growth was “the biggest thing” he could do to “secure a prosperous and thriving Northern Ireland”.
President Biden will arrive in Belfast this week to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, the peace deal which brought power-sharing to the province and ended the 30 years of conflict known as the Troubles.
Mr Sunak is expected to meet the President on the tarmac as he disembarks from Air Force One on Tuesday, with Mr Biden then undertaking a programme of engagements including a meeting with the Prime Minister.
Downing Street said Mr Sunak would use the President’s visit and his engagements with business leaders and others in Belfast to “celebrate Northern Ireland’s successes and encourage further long-term investment”. As part of his drive to bring more private capital to the province, he has decided the UK will host a Northern Ireland Investment Summit in Belfast in September.
Mr Sunak called the Agreement a rare example “of people doing the previously unthinkable to create a better future for Northern Ireland”.
“It is that promise of a better future that we offered to everyone in Northern Ireland that I will be thinking of first and foremost over the coming days. It is my responsibility as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to ensure we are making good on that promise,” he said.
The Prime Minister will return to Belfast on April 19 to address Queen’s University’s ‘Agreement 25’ conference and to host a special gala dinner to commemorate the anniversary.
His pledge to drum up investment for Northern Ireland will be seen as an attempt to move on from the bitter rows over the province’s post-Brexit status.
Last month, the UK sealed its new Windsor Framework deal with the EU.
However, the Democratic Unionist Party is continuing to boycott the Stormont Assembly over post-Brexit arrangements, claiming they threaten Northern Ireland’s place in the union.