Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

We have been observing the rise of China as a world economic power over the past 20 years at least and it continues to forge ahead. From an Irish viewpoint, we have been indicating in our industrial strategy the need for Ireland to promote science and investment in research, development and innovation and we are seeing continuing significant investment in Ireland as a result. There are aspects of economic activity and indeed parts of manufacturing at the lower end of the scale perhaps where Ireland is no longer competitive, given the wage rates that our people are entitled to expect.

However, we still have a manufacturing base in Ireland and the competitiveness of Irish industry has improved significantly in the past couple of years as a result of the difficult but necessary steps we have been taking. That is reflected both in terms of the stabilisation of the economy, given the contraction that has taken place, and in the fact that our exports are increasing. Indeed, we have exceeded the targets set in our Asian strategy for exports to China over the past decade and we are now seeking to build on a far more substantive activity base to that which was in place ten years ago.

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