NI Conservatives’ Europe spokesman, Mark Brotherston, has praised the military equipment company, Thales UK, for winning a landmark contract, worth more than £100 million, to supply Indonesia’s ministry of defence.
“Our goal needs to be to build an economy driven by exports and the likes of Thales UK are showing how it’s done”, Mark emphasised. “By exporting goods they’re bringing new money into Northern Ireland, which can be spent on creating new jobs, developing further investments and will filter down to other companies and services. The key to seeing more of this type of deal is a ‘can do’ attitude and an emphasis on enterprise, starting with the executive and extending right across our society.”
“Thales received help from David Cameron to negotiate this deal and it proves how important it is to have a Prime Minister and a government who believe in the importance of doing business with the rest of the world. We’d like to see far more of that attitude from the Northern Ireland Executive. They have tools at their disposal, like creating enterprise zones and giving special inducements to companies that export a certain amount of goods, which they have refused to use. Northern Ireland has some excellent companies like Thales, but we need more of them and they need proper and consistent backing from the Executive.”