REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE ENTERPRISE IRELAND BUSINESS BREAKFAST – AMMAN
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE ENTERPRISE IRELAND BUSINESS BREAKFAST – AMMAN WEDNESDAY, 15 FEBRUARY, 2006
I have been looking forward to this morning and the opportunity it gives me to meet so many representatives of the Jordanian business community. It also gives me a unique opportunity to offer Ireland’s thanks to those who promote trading links between Ireland and Jordan. So to the Chairman Mr. Sámi Gammon and the members of the Jordanian Irish Business Council in the Irish language, I say míle buíochas - a thousand thank-yous.
It was just one year ago that the Council held its first monthly lunch. On that occasion your focus was tourism and the speaker was Matt McNulty – a former Director General of the Irish Tourist Board and a man who helped to transform and revitalise the Irish tourism industry. It is good to hear that Matt and his colleague Professor Joe Ruddy of the Tourism Faculty at the Dublin Institute of Technology are now working with the key decision makers at the centre of the tourism industry in Jordan. So already the work of the Council is bearing visible fruits and this morning as I share some thoughts with you on the recent development of the Irish economy, I also want to mark and celebrate the growing business links between Ireland and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
In the course of a single generation Ireland has achieved one of the most remarkable economic transformations within the experience of the European Union and across the countries of the OECD. Formerly a poor and predominantly agricultural country which traded low-added value goods to neighbouring Great Britain - our then most significant trading partner - our overall trading position in the international community today makes Ireland one of the most open and globalised economies in the world. In 1960 an estimated 60% of our exports were from agriculture – today that figure is 6 %. In the same year some 29% of our exports came from the industrial sector – today that figure is 92%. Today, we trade with more than 200 countries and we export some 90% of everything we produce. In just over two decades Ireland’s GDP performance has grown from the weak position of being 70% of the European Union average to the remarkable position of being 140% today.
Such a massive transformation did not happen overnight, nor was it painless - far from it. It required a tremendous national effort, a commitment to a clear vision of the road we wanted to travel and a shared national understanding born out of an agreed and detailed social partnership between government, employers, trade unions, farmers and the community and voluntary sector. Between them through a process of tough negotiations they hammered out a consensus on what we needed to implement in order to reach our desired destination.
We set clear benchmarks and ambitious objectives – we shaped a strategy to achieve full employment; to attract foreign investment; to create a pro-business regulatory and competitive environment; to transform our education system and make it freely accessible to all our citizens, male, female, rich and poor; to establish taxation policies and incentives that would secure economic growth; to ensure transparency and predictability in our macro-economic policies and to guarantee confidence in our reliability as business partners to our customers and friends around the world.
We recognise that the future will be determined by our dedication to the obligations and opportunities of today and tomorrow and not just by an adulation of the achievements of yesterday. One of the reasons why Ireland is committed to pursuing strong trade and investment links with Jordan is because we share, in many ways, a common economic experience and have a similar drive in developing overseas markets for our products and services. We are both dedicated to the achievement of knowledge-based economies built on innovation and technology. We both have dynamic business climates that are driven by cutting-edge information technology. It is no surprise therefore that Ireland was one of the first countries to welcome the initiative of His Majesty King Abdullah in promoting cooperation in Information Technology in Emerging Markets. One of the strong elements in our inter-governmental relationship is the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Information and Communications Technology which will be reviewed and its work programme expanded in the coming days.
Irish companies who are leaders in the telecommunications sector are forging new ventures with their Jordanian counterparts. The most recent Irish company to invest in Jordan – the internet banking company CR2 – has established its international services headquarters in Amman. Jacobs Engineering has been working in Jordan for many years and one of our leading companies in the oil and gas sector – Petrel Resources - recently concluded an agreement with the Jordanian Natural Resources Authority. The names of leading Irish advisers – who contributed so much to our economic transformation - are well known in Jordan – people like David Lovegrove, Brendan Russell and Stephen Lee among others. Many are working in industrial modernisation, trade development, institution building and a variety of other sectors from insurance and financial services to good governance and public sector reform.
I have spoken of the knowledge economy and of both the challenges and opportunities of globalisation. But neither should we overlook the successes of areas that are perhaps identified as more traditional sectors of commerce and industry – but which themselves have been made more accessible in our new world economy. I think of sectors such as tourism, healthcare, food products, high value consumer goods, aeronautical services, engineering and financial services, as well as education – all offering opportunities for partnership with Jordan. Indeed one of our important ambitions is to bring our two countries closer together in the provision of international education services to Jordan and in linking our Universities and Research Institutions in cooperative projects.
Yesterday I visited the King Hussein Cancer Hospital and saw at first hand the operational video links – which take place on a daily basis - with Dublin and Belfast. I welcome the fact that the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin has established courses in Healthcare Management which are being delivered from their campuses in Bahrain and Dublin and that consideration is being given to establishing faculties of business studies from Irish Universities here. We are keen to welcome more young Jordanian women and men - students and researchers - to participate in our education system. Those who come to live and study in Ireland will, we hope, form those all-important lifelong networks of human connection on which to build future business, trade and friendship between our two countries.
We in Ireland are committed to the Jordanian market and to buoyant and mutually profitable bilateral trade and investment. I know from the recent visit to Ireland by His Majesty King Abdullah and Her Majesty Queen Rania, that Ireland’s commitment is fully reciprocated by Jordan. I invite Jordanian buyers, distributors, investors, researchers and technology partners to make full use of the services of Enterprise Ireland which exists to help you discover a host of excellent suppliers and strategic partners and to support you in the process of developing links.
I thank each one of you for being here and for this clear evidence of your commitment to developing business between Ireland and Jordan. May our two peoples continue to flourish helped by the success you wish for yourselves and I wish for you.
Shukran Jazilan. Thank you.