The Irish Government has today launched its new trade strategy, Ireland Connected: Trading and Investing in a Dynamic World.
Ireland Connected is the successor to the previous Trade, Tourism and Investment Strategy, which ran from 2010 to 2015 and saw extraordinary success despite low growth in the global economy during that period.
It sets ambitious targets for Ireland’s exports, foreign direct investment, tourism and international education. The new strategy aims to deepen Ireland’s economic resilience and responsiveness in the face of highly changeable global conditions by intensifying the business development activity in existing markets and diversifying into new regions. The aim is to reinforce Team Ireland’s agility and capacity to respond to the dynamic global environment.
The strategy hopes to generate 30,000 more jobs in tourism by 2020 and €5 billion in overseas tourism revenues by 2025. It also hopes to increase Ireland's indigenous exports, including food, to reach €26 billion by 2020 – up by 26% from 2015.
Furthermore, the strategy hopes to increase value to the economy with an uplift of 25% spend in the economy from Enterprise Ireland supported companies and a 20% uplift from IDA Ireland supported entities.
With regards the brexit, the report aims to intensify and diversify 80% of indigenous export growth to 2020 to be outside of the UK market and maintain exports of at least €7.5 billion to the UK.
The strategy hopes to secure 900 new foreign direct investments in the period 2015-2019 and to increase the number of our Irish owned companies of scale by 30% seeing a greater number exceed turnover thresholds of €3 million, €20 million and €100 million.
Launching the strategy, An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny said, "Ireland is one of the world’s most open, export-based economies and our new trade strategy “Ireland Connected” sets out our strategic plan for the years ahead. While we are determined to preserve the gains that we have made so painstakingly over recent years, Brexit has the potential to reshape Ireland’s enterprise and export strategy for decades to come."
He added, "Ireland's immediate priority will be to further diversify and intensify our engagement with non-UK markets, with a particular emphasis on the Eurozone. By working together we are confident that with the right policies and cross-Government commitment we will continue to attract FDI, overseas visitors and international students, and to help Irish businesses reach into new markets."
Source: www.businessworld.ie
