MANCHESTER'S international arts festival is to get £1m of government cash following its hugely successful debut last year.

The announcement came as an independent report said the 18-day summer event generated £28.8m for the local economy - £9.7m more than its target.

The first Manchester International Festival, which featured a host of world premieres, proved a smash hit with critics and the public.

Now it has emerged that Arts Council England - the body that oversees the spending of government and lottery cash on cultural causes - is to invest £1m in the next two festivals in 2009 and 2011.

News of the deal comes just weeks after the Arts Council said it was cutting funding to 212 organisations.

Fran Toms, the city's head of cultural strategy, confirmed the Arts Council had agreed to give £800,000 for the 2009 festival and a further £200,000 in 2011.

She said: "The confidence the council showed in setting up the festival has been well rewarded, particularly in terms of the economic benefits, the number of visitors and the numbers of volunteers that were involved."

The independent report - The Ascent of Manchester - found the 2007 festival to have exceeded most of its targets.

Audiences totalled 200,000 compared with an expected 160,000 and there were 25 world premieres rather than the target of 10.

Those included performances by dancer Carlos Acosta and comedian Johnny Vegas, as well as Monkey: Journey To The West - an opera written by Blur frontman Damon Albarn.

News of the £1m funding boost was welcomed by council leader Sir Richard Leese.

He said: "It does give us the confidence to start thinking about things in the long term."

The festival returns from July 2 to July 19, 2009.