To ask the Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment To detail (i) the number of small and medium sized business start ups in East Londonderry in each of the last two years; and (ii) the ratio of success to failure of new business start ups.

Due to their diversity there is no single definitive source which captures the ‘total’ number of business starts in Northern Ireland.

NISRA produce the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) which provides counts of births of new businesses (who meet VAT/PAYE threshold) for the (old) 26 District Council Areas. This information is not currently available by PCA nor is it available by new Council areas.

The IDBR statistics indicate that in Northern Ireland there were 67,710 VAT/PAYE starts recorded in 2013/2014 and 68,085 in 2014/15 of which 2,610 and 2,645 respectively were relevant to the (old) Derry City Council area. Survival rates are available to 2013 and show the (old) Derry City Council area to have an 87.5% survival rate (beyond 12 months) compared to the NI average of 86.4%.

Specific to East Londonderry, Invest NI provided financial support to 14 business starts in export markets during the financial years 2013/14 and 2014/15.

Invest NI’s Regional Start Initiative (RSI) supported the delivery of 390 business plans on behalf of locally focussed entrepreneurs in East Londonderry during 2013/14 and 2014/15. The final evaluation of RSI (October 2015) indicates that 68% of these business plans (nationally) converted to actual business starts with a survival rate beyond 12 months of 90%.