More retailers can open and small outdoor weddings will receive the go-ahead from June 8 if the coronavirus infection rate remains under control, ministers at Stormont have said.
Large stores like car showrooms will be able to open their doors.
Those in retail parks stocking household electrical appliances, computer equipment, mobile phones and furniture are also due to reopen, First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill said.
Activities to be permitted include:
- Weddings limited to fewer than ten people.
- Taking pets for treatment or grooming.
- Outdoor sports facilities.
- Hotels will be allowed to take forward bookings at their own risk but no date was set for reopening.
Ms O'Neill said: "Today represents forward momentum."
The ministers defended their decision not to allow indoor gatherings of people yet.
Science suggests the virus spreads more easily indoors than outdoors.
Supermarket sales have set a 26-year record recently, while takeaway business is up 250 per cent, the ministers said.
They also said 99 health and social care workers had been redeployed as contact tracers where coronavirus was detected.
Over the seven days to May 25, 212 cases were followed up, about 30 per day.
Ms O'Neill said it took two or three weeks to properly monitor how the disease has spread.
It will be June 8 before they know what impact earlier easements like allowing small groups to meet outdoors, solitary prayer at church and reopening of garden centres, has had on the virus' rate of spread.
The deputy first minister added they needed to be confident the rate of transmission had not risen above one.
The Stormont Executive will meet again on June 4 to make a final decision.
Two more deaths involving Covid-19 were reported by the Department of Health on Thursday, taking the total to 518.
First Minister Arlene Foster said the measures would come into effect "provided that the R value does not increase above one".
Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill said the R number - the number of people an infected person infects - was currently just below one in the north.
She said there would be no rapid easing of the restrictions.
"For me it's about steady as you go," she said.
Mrs Foster said public compliance with the current guidelines was crucial.
"The vast majority of the Northern Ireland public have been exemplary over this past two months, although we are still hearing too many anecdotal reports of groups of people not adhering to social distancing," she said.
The executive has again deferred a decision to permit family get-togethers indoors.
Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill sounded a note of caution about exiting lockdown, saying just an estimated 5 pre cent of the population of Northern Ireland have been exposed to the virus.
She described today's announcement as building "momentum" towards looking to the future.
"We've always said that actually coming out of this is going to be more difficult than going into it," she said.
