Showing off one of the high-tech car parts made at the Ford Motor-owned factory he manages, Trupiano says he had no qualms about being posted to the troubled British province in January 1997. Things have only got better."My confidence and my feeling of security have grown because things have really improved over just the 18 months I've been here," said Trupiano, plant manager at Visteon Automative Systems, a Ford enterprise that has 650 employees in Belfast.

"It's evident in day-to-day living outside of the plant," he said referring to the more relaxed atmosphere ushered in by the truces called by rival guerrilla groups and "a sense of confidence and prosperity" among downtown shoppers.

That is music to the ears of British ministers and the province's political leaders who have sunk old rivalries to tour North America in a bid towin much-needed inward investment and new jobs for areas scarred by years of violence. A peace deal signed in April has generated fresh hope of a permanent end to a conflict over the continuation of British rule that claimed 3,600 lives in 30 years of guerrilla violence. Buoyed by the new accord, a high-powered team of politicians and officials from the province's Industrial Development Board (IDB) this month toured 11 US cities to try to whip up investment that could underpin peace.

The tour bore fruit when US insurer Allstate Corp announced in Chicago it would spend $6 million on a software design centre in Northern Ireland. Around 20,000 people, or 20 per cent of Northern Ireland's manufacturing workers, already work for North American companies. It has some 100 wholly or partly-owned US firms.