Over the month of May, Manufacturing NI rightly shone a spotlight on one of our greatest economic strengths. Manufacturing contributes more than £6 billion to our economy, directly supports over 100,000 jobs and creates opportunities across the region. Too often, however, our focus on future economic growth can be on attracting the next major inward investment rather than on looking at growing our economy, backing the businesses, workers and innovators that we already have here and helping them to scale.

Our manufacturers invest in innovation and R&D. They create high-quality jobs, and they export their products around the world. Manufacturing is ultimately about people and opportunity. It is about delivering skills, making things and creating opportunities for people to build a better future in this place that they call home. Alliance believes that we need to be much more ambitious. Despite the importance of the sector, we still lack a dedicated manufacturing strategy. We need a strategy that is focused on removing the barriers to growth, addressing skills shortages, reducing energy costs for manufacturers, supporting innovation and export opportunities, and tackling planning delays and waste water connection constraints. Most importantly, it must contain clear priorities, actions and timelines.

We should also be collaborating across this island on a range of issues, including skills, energy, supply chain opportunities and human resources. We need to look at the areas in which it makes practical economic sense to work together, and then do so to deliver better for everyone. Manufacturing has been recognised as being central to the South's success, economic growth and regional prosperity. Some 85% of the jobs in manufacturing sector in the South of Ireland are outside the Dublin area. If you tackle the issue, jobs will spread naturally across the region. The South's success did not happen by accident; it came about because it created the conditions for businesses to invest, grow and succeed. We need to do exactly the same.

Manufacturing is not an industry of the past; it is one on which the foundations of our future are built. If we are serious about growing our economy, creating good jobs and building opportunity across Northern Ireland, manufacturing must be at the heart of that ambition. I thank Manufacturing NI for the outstanding work that it does to highlight and celebrate the manufacturing industry and businesses that we have here. I congratulate the workers who create those businesses and make them thrive and grow, and I wish them all the best for the future.