Mr. Kevin Sherry:

The Vietnamese and Indonesian markets are kept under constant review in terms of where resources are deployed. As mentioned by Mr. Fahy, we recently did a market study visit in Vietnam and we are planning one for Thailand later in the year. This is done in conjunction with the ambassador. In the case of Indonesia, the vast majority of our exports to Indonesia are in the food area, which is the responsibility of our colleagues in Bord Bia. Enterprise Ireland does not have responsibility for the overseas trade promotion of food. While we are currently encouraging companies to look at Indonesia as a market this does not justify our putting a person there full time. I mentioned earlier that one of the team in our office in Singapore is an Indonesian national who spends time in the marketplace, which is very important. We purposely sought to recruit somebody with that expertise. As in the case of many other markets, we will continue to try to encourage and develop companies' interest in the Indonesian and Vietnamese markets. One of the things we need to do is to bring companies with us. We have to encourage their commitment without over-extending them. Many Irish companies are on a journey within the Asia Pacific region. Many are at the stage of looking at putting feet on the ground in the region. Once they get established in the region they than seek to expand beyond one location.

As I said earlier, when responding to Deputy Byrne's question in regard to ease of doing business, Indonesia is a market that is up there in terms of difficulty in doing business. It is a market in reality where there are issues associated with the ease of doing business. As corruption is a factor in Indonesia companies must be much more prepared and much more resilient when going into that particular market. It is not as easy a market in which to do business as is Singapore. That said, there are opportunities and we are exploring them. In the context of resource allocation, as in the case of other locations where we co-locate with the embassies, it is an obvious choice.