The area is served by the modern port of Warrenpoint, which has direct container and Roll on and Roll off services with Britain, as well as numerous freight services to European ports. A new Newry by-pass has recently been completed and new railway and bus stations are planned. A new modern quality accommodation focused hotel, The Canal Court incorporating an excellent leisure complex commenced trading in late February 1998 and was officially opened on 24 March 1998. The hotel won the 1998 British Airways NI Tourism Awards Hotel of the Year Award.

At present there are more than 2,500 small businesses located in the Newry and Mourne District Council area. This represents the highest per capita ratio of small businesses in Northern Ireland, confirming the self-help entrepreneur culture within the area. Newry has secured more inward investment in the last four years than in the previous thirty years. Similarly there have been record investments from indigenous companies and the local economy has been ideally located to benefit from the significant economic boom in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in recent years.

The former Department of the Environment for NI (DoE) recently published a major Discussion Paper on "Shaping our future towards a strategy for the development of the region". It is very encouraging to report that this document identified Newry along with Belfast, Derry, Antrim, Lisburn and Craigavon as the main towns capable of achieving high levels of growth over the next twenty-five years. The Doe Regional Strategy Discussion paper has major implications for government spending across all government departments.