2010
A New International Trade and Investment Strategy Urgently Needed to Boost Job Growth
and Combat Declining Home Market Sales; state the Irish Exporters Association (IEA)
The IEA today (21st June 2010) called on Batt OKeeffe, the Minister for Enterprise Trade and Innovation, to move quickly to put in place a new International Trade and Investment Strategy.
John Whelan, Chief Executive of the IEA stated;
‘’We must empower the wide range of small and medium sized businesses focused on the contracting home market to trade more extensively abroad.’’
‘’We will continue to bleed the job losses seen over the last 18 months, unless a new dynamic international trade and investment strategy is put into place by Government , to help us trade our way out of the continued downward job spiral.’’
John Whelan, went on to say;
‘’Current export growth is mainly taking place in the larger export corporations, and while this is essential to our long term stability as an exporting nation, it is primarily a jobless growth pattern currently.’’
‘’We have been pressing the need for a new International Trade Strategy for some time now. Last year the Tánaiste, Mary Coughlan, promised a New Strategy for Trade and Investment in early 2010. Earlier this year we met Minister for Enterprise Trade and Innovation, Batt O’ Keeffe, and were advised the same message. Last week we met Minister for Trade and Commerce Billy Kelleher and re emphasized the message and the urgency for action.”
John Whelan stressed the exporter’s association message as follows;
We need to Sell our Way out of Recession-we need stimulus measures that can be put into effect immediately, and although long term the SMART Economy measures should and must be supported, we must rapidly empower the wide range of small and medium sized businesses trading in both goods and services to look at export markets in greater depth and find their best route to market and business expansion.
An Export Out-Reach programme is a core requirement. There are a wide range of Irish businesses who do not show up on the State agencies export promotion radar , who could be assisted to survive and expand if the route to export markets were opened up to them. The IEA propose an Export Outreach Programme to identify and assist these companies. This we recommend would best be done as a Public Private Partnership programme, which the IEA would be happy to lead on.
The IEA further outlined the global back drop to their New Strategy call;
Current forecasts suggest that by 2025, the volume of trade could double compared with 2005, with a bigger share of exports coming from emerging market economies (more than 30 % as against 20 % in 2005). In today’s global economy, production will increasingly be organised along global supply chains. They have become an important factor in ensuring competitiveness on domestic as well as global markets. Around two thirds of the Ireland’s imports are inputs to other products. As a result, open trade helps embed local companies in global production chains, makes them more competitive and creates more jobs. Trade and investment flows are complementary, create jobs and promote transfer of technology. While people may be wary about the impact of all this on their job security and income, the crisis has clearly shown that protectionism is not an option. People are equally wary about the environmental impacts of the way we do business, for instance in terms of resource use and climate change. All major economies are today in the same boat; if one of them closes its markets or pursues unsustainable policies, all will suffer. The global financial crisis and its effects on the real economy have underscored the importance of sound regulation and the need to avoid major global imbalances. Trade flows were dramatically affected, although protectionism did not spread as widely as feared thanks to coordinated international efforts in G20 and WTO. The current initiatives (both at EU level and as part of the G20 mechanism) envisage a number of solutions to prevent similar crises from happening in the future. They should be part of an integrated coordinated approach to boost growth, creating more jobs and ensuring a more resource efficient and greener economy. Ireland needs a new international similar to the new Europe 2020 Strategy, agreed by the EU governments last week in Brussels.
END
For further information, please contact:
John Whelan, Chief Executive
Mobile: 087 927 1243
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