THE Chancellor is to travel to the United States at the head of a cross-party task force designed to win new investment for Northern Ireland.
Gordon Brown will accom-pany Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam for the opening stage of a tour of American cities to try to persuade businesses to seize the chance to set up in the province.
Mr Brown announced the transatlantic initiative in Belfast yesterday as he revealed a major economic strategy for Northern Ireland worth #315m which will underpin the historic Good Friday peace agreement.
It consists of a #150m investment fund, of which #21m has been set aside for an innovation and tourism fund, a #65m employment and skills fund and a #100m enterprise fund.
Mr Brown, the first Chancellor to visit Belfast in 18 years, said the financial package to encourage enterprise and investment would be introduced whether or not the Good Friday document was accepted.
Speaking at a meeting at Stormont, he told top businessmen, industrialists and politicians, among them Sinn Fein's chief negotiator Martin McGuinness: ''Having created a framework for peace, we can now create a framework for prosperity. For years we have been attempting to protect the Northern Ireland economy. From today we can begin to build it.''
The Government hopes the proposals can persuade reluctant Ulster Unionists to back the agreement and rejected claims by anti-agreement campaigners that the package was an attempt to buy a yes vote at the polls on Friday week.
Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected back in Belfast tomorrow.
The #315m investment was more than twice what had been expected. Part of it is to improve Northern Ireland's general infrastructure and social and economic fabric to develop skills and retraining, and to get more of the long-term unemployed back to work.
New tax initiatives for investment to Northern Ireland are also to be introduced.
Money is to be set aside for research and development, to promote tourism and create a new science park.
Mr Brown added: ''The challenge we face is to build on economic and political stability, to promote enterprise and inward investment, to get people back to work and equip them with the right skills and to build an infrastructure for a modern economy.''
There was an immediate welcome from leading industrialists, tourism chiefs and trade union bosses. Mr Chris Gibson, the CBI's Northern Ireland chairman, said the package would provide a worldwide platform for prosperity.
Mr McGuinness said: ''I don't want to sound begrudging but it is only a drop in the ocean and much more needs to be done because this is an area of great disadvantage.''
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