Investment Minister Arlene Foster and Employment Minister Sir Reg Empey were urged make an official commitment to redress regional inequalities in the North West during a debate at the assembly on Tuesday.
The Sentinel this week reports how the city is the poorest place in Northern Ireland when compared with twenty-six District Council areas.
The paper has also flagged Londonderry's dismal 7.2 per cent unemployment rate and shown that foreign capital has resulted in just one job-boosting investment scheme in the city so far this year.
Just thirty new jobs have been created as a result of a total planned investment of £1.68m thusfar in the financial year 2009/10, according to Ms Foster's own figures.
But speaking during a debate in the Stormont yesterday Ulster Unionist Party MLA Leslie Cree said any proposal to designate the North West as an area of special need would undermine its economic future.
"There is clear evidence that the north west is suffering economically, but the question we must ask is whether declaring the north west an area of special economic need will deliver the results we all wish to see.
"I believe the answer is that it would not. Londonderry and the north west have a key role to play in the future of Northern Ireland PLC, and this would only be undermined by hiving the north west off from the rest of us." he said.