AN organisation responsible for attracting new business to part of the region has beaten its targets and helped to create thousands of jobs during the past year.

County Durham Development Company (CDDC), the business development operation of Durham County Council, has had an influential role in promoting the area as a place to do business.

Its work during the past 12 months has resulted in more than 3,000 potential jobs being secured - more than twice the number expected.

CDDC managing director Stewart Watkins said: "County Durham is a dramatically different business landscape from a decade or two ago. It is reinforcing its reputation as a first-class destination for businesses to locate.

"What is most pleasing is the quality of companies choosing the county as a base - they are bringing high-tech jobs that will have a positive effect in reversing the brain drain that has increasingly become a concern for the North-East."

Highlights of the year include:

* Attracting the UK's first Direct Writing Association conference to Durham. Direct Writing is considered to be the future of manufacturing, using technology already in service with Nasa, the US Air Force and Formula One;

* More than 800 potential jobs to be created by two private property developments on Durham County Council industrial estates at Green Lane and Greencroft;

* A 400-job project to bring Fusion Contact Centre Services, part of the Budget Group, to the former Orange building, at Bracken Hill Business Park, at Shotton Colliery, near Peterlee;

* Cumbrian Seafoods establishing a 13,000sq ft centre of excellence for shellfish and coated seafood products, at Fox Cover Enterprise Park, in east Durham.

Since it was established in 1987, CDDC has helped more than 4,000 businesses create a total of 48,500 jobs.