Services Exporting Needs a Wider Base to Expand and Accelerate Job Creation, state the Irish Exporters Association

Services Exporting needs a wider base to expand and accelerate job creation, state the Irish Exporters Association as they Launch their World Series seminars on ‘How to Market your Services Overseas ‘ with the first seminar sessions in Cork Thursday the 26th August, 15th September in Limerick , and 29th September in Dublin. The IEA have brought together a panel of industry experts to ensure real value is delivered at each seminar. To book attendance you can go to www.irishexporters.ie

John Whelan, launching the Seminar series in Cork stated;
‘’In Ireland we have managed to build up a strong range of major services corporations exporting very successfully to global markets .In fact over the past decade services exports out of Ireland have grown from €20 billion some 10 years ago to €67 billion last year. The World Trade Organisation in it’s report earlier this year ranked Ireland the 9th largest exporter of services globally, up from 11th position in 2008.This improvement in our market share during this recessionary period underlines the strength of the Irish export sector.

However, in Ireland as with many other countries there are still only a small percentage of services businesses selling their services internationally. In Ireland it is estimated that only 3.5% of services businesses do any exporting. The success of our services export industry has been built on attracting the major international services corporations to locate their European and in some instances their global operations centre in Ireland – these include Microsoft, Oracle, Google , e-Bay , Facebook, to name but a few. But these companies employ only an estimated 12% of the 843, 000 people employed in the private sector services .The challenge is how to empower the other 88% of people working in services, so that they can start selling their services abroad. ‘’

John Whelan further stated that with the introduction of the Services Directive in Ireland and across Europe in January of 2010, untapped growth potential of services markets in Europe was further released as it will remove legal and administrative barriers to trade in the services sector1
The EU Commission advise that whilst Services account for around 70% of both EU output and EU employment, Services accounts for relatively low shares of intra EU trade (24%) and investment.

The IEA at their seminar briefings advise on the Services Directive and state that the Directive will be of particular benefit to small and medium sized businesses seeking to provide services within the scope of the Directive at a distance from their home member state to another member state or to establish in the other member state for the purposes of providing services.
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