A STATE-OF-THE-ART service centre for the New York Stock Exchange is to be set up creating up to 400 jobs in Northern Ireland, sending "a strong message to other potential investors that this is an exceptional place to locate and grow a business," said Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster.

When US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Northern Ireland recently, she said she believed the region in the UK had escaped the worst ravages of the global economic downturn and credited its educated, highly skilled workforce for that.

Secretary Clinton told a delegation of business leaders at Queen's University Belfast that US corporations invested in the region for hard-nosed commercial reasons. "These efforts to promote greater partnership are win/win," she said. "We often talk about investment in Northern Ireland, but we have also got thousands of jobs created back in the 'States because of Northern Ireland investment."

Announcing the New York Stock Exchange plans in Belfast, NYSE chief executive Duncan Niederauer said the skills base of the region's workforce - and the personal relationship developed with leading representatives in the Northern Ireland parliament - had led to the ground-breaking investment.

Recruitment for the posts will take place over the next two years and will be mainly technical jobs based in the city centre. About 18 months ago the Wall Street exchange bought Belfast software company Wombat that established its operation with assistance from Invest Northern Ireland (Invest NI), Northern Ireland's economic agency.

Wombat develops advanced software that is used to supply stock exchange data to many of the largest and most sophisticated financial institutions worldwide at high speed. Economists describe the recent NYSE investment as "an endorsement of the region's rising economy and a symbolic vote of confidence in a peaceful future".

Speaking at Wombat's offices, Economy Minister Nigel Dodds said: "Wombat's decision to reinvest here underlines the firm's confidence in Northern Ireland and the specialist skills which are available here. It also further strengthens the local financial services sector, a key target area for growth and investment."

Wombat's chief operations officer Danny Moore added: "Our experience in Belfast has been extremely positive with highly skilled software engineers, and our proximity to Europe helping us to grow and sustain our business ... we hope to take Wombat's Belfast centre of engineering excellence to an even more competitive level and explore new market opportunities. Invest NI's continued support has been invaluable, helping us to develop an appropriate infrastructure and facilitate staff training."

Another large US-based financial group - Citi - employs about 800 people in Belfast in a technology service centre. More investment in the region has come from a French-owned call centre increasing its operations in Northern Ireland with the creation of 610 jobs. Teleperformance offers business services to the international retail, banking, telecoms, travel and health sectors.

It will be expanding its flagship Newry hub in County Down with the help of a support grant of three million pounds from Invest NI. In time, Teleperformance expects to have 2,000 people based at its Newry and Bangor sites, making the company one of the region's largest employers.

Teleperformance's chief Jeff Smith said: "The demand for outsourcing is increasing as companies look for more cost-effective methods of managing key business activities. Thus we identified a need for a major expansion at one of our UK sites which would support the development of new business opportunities across Europe."

And Firstsource - an Indian-owned outsourcing company that operates two centres in Belfast and Londonderry employing more than 1,000 people - is to recruit 100 more employees at its Londonderry premises. The telecoms company already employs about 900 people in Derry City.

Recently, Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster announced the first expansion outside the US of the NaviNet Group that is to set up a software R&D centre in Belfast. It will create nearly 60 highly skilled, high-value jobs over the next three years in a 4.4m pounds investment. Invest NI has offered 944,000 pounds towards the project.

Ms Foster said the highly innovative company - which has developed unique ICT solutions for the healthcare industry in the US - is the largest real-time, healthcare communications network in the US, securely linking more than 800,000 providers and the nation's patients, industry partners and leading health insurers.

She added: "The company has ambitious plans to win new business and significantly increase its revenues over the next several years. After considering a number of potential international locations, its decision to invest in Northern Ireland is a mark of its confidence in this region's competitiveness and the availability of talented ICT professionals. NaviNet will join the growing cluster of world-class healthcare and ICT companies here and enhance our growing global reputation for excellence."

Brad Waugh, NaviNet's president and chief executive officer, said: "NaviNet looked at various options and locations for our new R&D centre but, as a result of discussions with Invest NI and our recognition of the many attractions of Northern Ireland as a good place to do business, notably the quality of the workforce, we decided to invest here. I am confident that the Belfast centre will play an important role in the future growth and success of NaviNet."

More enterprise investment is coming from Netherlands group Norfolkline. It is setting up a new finance service centre that will see existing finance administration functions, currently located in seven European countries, centralised in Belfast. At present it employs about 390 people in Belfast working in finance, logistics and ferry services.

Norfolkline operates from more than 30 offices covering most of Europe. Apart from ferry services its logistics division offers tailor-made management solutions, warehousing and rail and road transportations to a range of industry sectors across all Europe.

By centralising European finance activities in a new centre, about 60 jobs will be created over the next 12-18 months, bringing total employment at the centre to about 90. Invest NI has offered 376,000 pounds of support toward the project.

Lars Olsen, Norfolkline Group's chief financial officer, said: "Through a very thorough and comprehensive process Northern Ireland was chosen as it offered the best value composition to Norfolkline. Invest NI's support was instrumental in our decision to choose this region, and our existing presence in Belfast meant that we already had experience of the highly impressive skills base."

Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster also announced an 870,000 pounds expansion project by a Belfast aerospace group, Nacelle Systems Consultancy (NSC). NSC primarily designs, develops and integrates high-tech electrical, hydraulic and control equipment to connect aircraft engines to wings.

The company has a number of lucrative contracts, including multi-million pound deals with global players including US firm Parker Aerospace, and BAE Systems. To meet the increase in demand, NSC moved to purpose-built premises and is creating 13 high quality posts. Invest NI has offered 115,000 pounds towards the expansion investment, with part funding from the European Regional Development Fund.

Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster said: "Nacelle is an excellent example of a small, indigenous company succeeding on a challenging world stage often dominated by major multinational corporations. Thanks to a combination of high calibre skills and a shrewd knowledge of the market, NSC is securing premium, specialised work contracts that are not only lucrative but which are also helping the company build a significant international reputation."

And in the green industry sector, Northern Ireland's wind energy sector could attract up to two billion pounds of business. Over the next decade there will be about 12.5 billion pounds of investment in the construction and development of wind farms on both sides of the border, according to a report by consultants Deloitte for the Irish Wind Energy Association. Of this, an estimated 4.3bn pounds will be retained in the regional economies.