Irish Businesses Look Towards Market Diversification

Enterprise Ireland, the Government agency responsible for helping companies to scale and export internationally, announced details (July 22) of its intensified programme of trade missions and events to support Irish exporters in the wake of the UK referendum for the rest of the 2016. In conjunction with the Departments of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and Foreign Affairs and Trade, 68 events which started from July have been planned, including 26 ministerial-led trade missions for the second half of the year. In total there will be 36 ministerial-led trade missions and events in 2016 - almost double the number in 2015.

The expanded programme is one of the key actions outlined by Enterprise Ireland in its ‘5 pillars of support’ plan, to help client companies exporting to the UK investigate opportunities for export growth and diversification into Northern Europe, USA and other high growth markets. Some of the key sectors and markets targeted include a Lifesciences Trade Mission to the USA, ICT Water and Wastewater Trade Mission to the Gulf and Food Manufacturing in UAE and Iran.

Julie Sinnamon, CEO, Enterprise Ireland said: “A key element of Enterprise Ireland’s plan to support Irish exporters is around market expansion and diversification. We recently announced record export results of €20.6bn which demonstrates that our strategy of helping clients expand into new markets in recent years is working.

“We will now intensify that approach in order to increase the opportunities for Irish exporters to scale their businesses into other global markets continuing to reduce our overall dependence on the UK market.

“Our strategy is to continue to increase the number of globally diversified Irish companies and we will now firmly focus on opportunities in Northern Europe, the USA, Canada and other high-growth markets including the Middle East and Asia Pacific,” she added.