Mr. Simon McKeever:

I represent the Irish Exporters Association, the representative body for Irish exporters. We are the voice of these exporters; we provide practical knowledge to Irish exporters through a range of geographical fora and some bodies like the life sciences and food and drink sectors; and we also provide practical connectivity into overseas markets and various agencies at home. We aim to get more Irish companies to export for the first time and more exports from existing Irish and overseas companies based in Ireland. In particular, we speak about competitiveness and the access to finance issue.
Today, I will refer to the impact of TTIP at a macro level, the issue of small and medium enterprises and the dissemination of TTIP or how to get the process to companies on the ground, as there is a bit of a minefield in trying to get the information out. To echo Mr. Ivory's comments, we welcome TTIP enormously as it is an important development which will increase trade through its main tenets of reducing existing tariffs and non-tariff barriers, harmonising regulatory frameworks in food safety, e-commerce and data privacy, although there are such privacy issues within the European Union anyway. It also concerns regulatory frameworks in aviation standards, retail trade, architecture, engineering, finance, procurement and telecoms. From a global perspective, the impact of TTIP will not be confined to the EU and the US, and as this would become the largest trading bloc in the world, it would probably set the standards for the entire world. To trade with either bloc, one would need to adopt the standards of both TTIP regions.
This EU and US trade corridor would create a balance over time for emerging economies and other power blocs around the world and it would facilitate 1.5% growth in both the EU and the US. EU exports to the US and vice versawould increase up to approximately 20% and the process would bring a boost of approximately €100 billion for the EU. As the US is a very important market for Ireland, there would be a particular boost for Irish exports, as 21% of merchandise exports go from Ireland to the US. It is a very important market that is not restricted to merchandise exports, as it takes in services, which make up 53% of what we sell from this country. It is important to consider this global impact, which would have wider implications in the setting of standards around the world and not just in Ireland and the EU.
I will speak particularly to the implications for small and medium enterprises, SMEs. In the EU and Ireland, 90% of businesses are small to medium enterprises and they are a dominant part of the economy in Ireland. There are not enough small to medium enterprises exporting and we would like to see more doing so. SMEs are currently disproportionately affected by the lack of TTIP or a harmonisation process, as it costs proportionately much more for an SME to deal with red tape, customs and other issues for market entry into different countries. The harmonisation of such issues would benefit SMEs in particular. If an SME is building a product or selling a service, it must meet Irish or EU regulatory needs and if it goes to the US, in some cases it must design an entire product but at the least, the product must be tweaked, which involves a cost. For an SME, such a cost is proportionately far greater than that for a very large company. This partnership would reduce such costs and make the SMEs much more competitive. If there is a single set of standards, a product can be built for sale in both blocs.
We have spoken about documentation, customs and hidden barriers, and the time it takes to get a product through various stages of paperwork overseas can sometimes put off SMEs in going to such markets. There must be a resource in the SME to handle such processes, which is an extra cost, whereas large organisations can build it in. Moving to harmonisation and standardisation would reduce such costs for an SME. Many SMEs develop niche products with high technology or a high capacity focused on a niche market. Currently, if the company needs to produce a niche product or service to a set of different standards, it would also cause an increased cost. Moving to similar standards and harmonisation would, therefore, open a new set of markets for niche producers.
SMEs drive job creation and innovation and TTIP would open this process completely, creating a major impact for SMEs. Mr. Ivory has already mentioned this but this could get SMEs into a global supply chain perspective rather than one limited to the EU. Many SMEs have considered getting into overseas operations of some American companies which they supply, and this could open the door considerably for such businesses.
We must watch the government procurement section and although it should lead to more transparency, SMEs tend to fare a little worse on the Government procurement side than the larger counterparts in Europe. We have reached a tipping point in Irish exporting as 53% of exports are now services whereas the majority of them have traditionally been merchandise trade.

The EU and the US are the world's largest service providers. Many service providers are SMEs, comprising engineers, accountants and tax advisers who have a great deal of particular expertise in that area, and this would facilitate their business. We welcome it from those points of view.

If one Googles TTIP one goes through hundreds of websites to find out exactly what it is doing. I do not get many inquiries from our members about TTIP so there is a need to get the information out. While it is incumbent on organisations like ours to share that information, it would be very useful to have a single source where the information is pulled together, where developments within it, and a general understanding, could be pushed out to people.

We absolutely welcome TTIP. The large overseas companies that bring a great deal of inward investment to the Irish economy, as it is currently constructed, would benefit from it. We agree with Mr. Ivory's comments about certain sectors. It could have massive potential for indigenous SMEs.