Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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280. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the extent to which her Department has examined new markets both inside and outside the European Union for Irish products in order to compensate for the consequences of Brexit; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3522/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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To drive the export led growth strategy, the Government through Enterprise Ireland is focused on a two key priorities to;

(1) intensify its work with clients to maintain and grow UK exports and extend their reach into international markets,

(2)   reinforce the competitiveness of clients with ambition by strengthening their productivity, innovation and management capability to become more competitive in international markets.

I launched Enterprise Ireland’s new Strategy 2017 – 2020 on Monday 9th January 2017. This Strategy sets out very ambitious targets to grow the level of exports by €5bn to €26bn per annum with over two-thirds of those outside of the UK.

EI’s export strategy is twofold – it has a specific focus on consolidating exports in the UK and it will remain an important market for Ireland. EI will be implementing a UK Market Development plan which focusses on sustaining exports in key sectors such as construction, agritech, aerospace and engineering and also identifying new growth opportunities in financial services, infrastructure/public sector. EI’s trade mission programme, which will be launched in the coming weeks, outlines a number of trade missions to the UK focussing on some of these key sectors. EI is also working with companies heavily focussed on the UK, at a sector by sector and one to one basis, through its UK office, on improving their competitiveness and innovation capabilities to sustain and grow exports.

The second part of the strategy focuses on increasing exports to markets beyond the UK. EI’s plans have a specific emphasis on markets, including the Eurozone, where it plans to increase exports by 50% to 2020, the USA/Canada, Asia and the Middle East. EI’s international trade & events programme, which will be launched shortly, focusses on trade missions, market study visits and inwards buyer visits from markets with specific sectoral opportunities.

To drive this strategy, 39 posts will be created in a number of Enterprise Ireland’s overseas offices and in the Irish based team. On foot of 2015 export figures, there is immediate opportunity and potential for strengthening our foothold in existing established markets and for diversified export growth.  In 2015, sales to North American grew by 27%, Northern Europe by 8% and Asia-PAC by 11%.

Extra staff will be placed in EI’s overseas offices with sectoral knowledge and expertise such as in engineering, food, life sciences and construction. This will drive export growth to other international markets where there are known opportunities and reduce reliance on the UK.

Nevertheless, the UK will continue to be a priority market due to Ireland’s size, geographic proximity and cultural ties. EI will focus on increasing international sales with existing buyers while also supporting companies to develop new strategic relationships and avail of emerging opportunities, particularly in the engineering and construction sectors.

In 2017, EI will also rollout the ‘Global Ambition Campaign’ which is a communications campaign to promote Irish companies and their products and services to international buyers.