AN organisation dedicated to supporting the professional service sector in the region has pledged to create 400 jobs and 100 businesses in the next two years.

Service Network, a membership group, will work with a number of regional partners in its quest to achieve the target.

David Bowles, chairman of Service Network, said: "The importance of this sector cannot be underestimated. Professional and business services are the driving force behind the ambition to build a knowledge-driven economy for the North-East.

"Along with the region's five universities, the sector provides much of the region's reservoir of knowledge.

"The aim of this strategy is to accelerate the growth of the sector by helping businesses through the barriers to growth."

To achieve the targets, a number of objectives have been identified focusing on profitability, survival rates, new firm formation, skills capacity and collaboration.

Key activity themes have also been identified through research and consultation with the business community.

These include developing new markets, competitiveness, entrepreneurial attitude and skills.

The network also plans to increase the number of businesses "exporting" services outside the region by five per cent, increase business survival rates within the sector by five per cent and raise the number of graduates finding employment regionally within the sector by two per cent.