REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT AN ENTERPRISE IRELAND BUSINESS BREAKFAST, GRAND HYATT HOTEL
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT AN ENTERPRISE IRELAND BUSINESS BREAKFAST, GRAND HYATT HOTEL, SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL, 25 MARCH, 2004
Dia dhíbh a cháirde. Tá an-áthas orm bheith anseo libh ar maidin i Sao Paulo.
Bom dia a todos – hello everybody.
I am delighted to have this opportunity to meet with you – representatives of Irish companies taking part in the biggest trade mission to Brazil in recent years and of course your local partners. I have been looking forward for a very long time to my visit to South America, indeed my visit here to your beautiful country has been one of the shining moments of my Presidency and the warmth of the welcome here in Sao Paulo, described as the powerful engine that leads the Nation, has been beyond compare.
My visit to Brazil – one of the world’s leading nations and economies – allows me to see at first hand the impressive social and economic developments that have taken place here, and which offer Irish companies the chance to build long-term relationships across a very wide range of industrial sectors.
The purpose of this trade mission is to highlight the importance of the Brazilian market to Ireland and promote the fact that Ireland is a leading source of high quality products and services for international customers. It will strengthen existing business relationships between Ireland and Brazil and build new ones. It is also an opportunity to look more closely at the development of commercial and trade links between our two countries and to focus in particular on what can be identified as areas of significant future potential. Business between Ireland and Brazil has been growing impressively with last year showing an increase in our two-way trade of 27%, but you more than most will know that there is scope for us to do a lot more business together and we hope we can achieve this in the years ahead.
The calibre and diversity of companies participating in this trade mission clearly shows the strong connections already forged by Irish companies with Brazil and a keenness to accelerate this relationship. The members of this trade mission come here with the hope to strengthen ties with local business interests and develop new opportunities that will be mutually beneficial. Included are representatives of a range of high-tech sectors and business interests, and include some of Ireland’s leading companies.
The opportunities for Irish companies in Brazil are many and varied and we are particularly interested in developing business opportunities in information technology and telecommunications, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, quality consumer goods, and international consultancy and services in areas ranging from education and training to financial, engineering and environmental services.
To put this in context, I would like to give you a brief overview of Ireland’s current economic performance. The Irish economy continues to be one of the leading economic growth performers in the industrialised world – and the international drive of Irish companies, such as those who are with us this morning, has been in large measure responsible for this.
Over the past five years, Ireland’s average annual growth was more than three times that of EU and OECD countries, and one of the highest anywhere in the world. Even as we experience the present global economic slowdown, Ireland’s projected growth over the next few years will still be well ahead of other OECD countries, maintaining our position as one of the world’s growth leaders. We are the success story par excellence of the European Union. We joined it thirty years ago as a small impoverished peripheral nation, drained by generations of emigration, earning 60 percent of the average EU GDP per capita. Today that figure is 120 percent. A country which missed the first industrial revolution is now at the forefront of the second. Today we export our products and services world-wide and not our people.
Major advances in information technologies, together with the impetus of worldwide free trade policies, have created what is increasingly a global marketplace, in which national boundaries and geographic distances are no longer barriers to doing business.
The procurement teams of large international corporations today operate on an international basis, sourcing in one country to manufacture in a second, for distribution in a third. We have witnessed how relatively small companies, at one time held back from entering the export market, are now experienced global players.
In this business environment, there are many opportunities for Irish and Brazilian companies to work together to achieve growth by forging new strategies and commercial linkages aimed at winning new business on both sides of the Atlantic and, indeed, throughout the world. World trade is characterised by large regional blocs. Ireland is part of the European Union and Brazil is part of Mercosur. The greater part of Ireland’s trade is with Europe and much of Brazil’s trade is also regional.
It is essential to the orderly development of the global economy that these huge regional groupings are outward-looking in their trade perspective, and provide a stimulus to trade across the world, rather than being a series of closed shops. Countries such as Ireland and Brazil can do much to contribute to this process of cross-regional trade.
Ireland currently holds the Presidency of the European Union. On 1 May, we will celebrate the Day of Welcomes when we will welcome ten new Member States and as a result create an expanded Union of 25 States with 450 million citizens. In trade, Ireland's active development of markets throughout the European Union and our increased access to the fast growing economies of middle Europe such as Hungary, Poland and other incoming members of the EU, makes it an ideal partner for joint ventures with companies from South America. Ireland has many companies, of proven excellence and performance, with the market access, contact networks and local knowledge to partner South American companies in Europe.
I hope that this mission will lead to a greater number of such alliances between Ireland and Brazil and a chance to more fully explore the scope for linkages through investment, technology transfer, joint ventures, acquisitions, and other forms of joint marketing and trade relationships.
Enterprise Ireland, which has organised this trade mission, is the trade and technology board of the Irish Government, and is actively supporting Irish companies through a range of initiatives to build market awareness and accelerate sales growth across the globe. It works with Irish companies and business interests around the world to develop mutually advantageous partnership opportunities. In the IT and high technologies sectors, in particular, Ireland has much to offer. In our open business culture, innovative companies with leading edge products and services can thrive and strategic partnerships between small, medium and large companies are recognised as the most effective way to ensure competitive advantage.
Given Ireland's industrial and technical strengths and competitiveness in world markets, and given the active interest of Irish companies in doing business in Brazil, we believe that there is great potential for an accelerated expansion of our trade partnership.
The continued prosperity of both Ireland and Brazil relies on enhancing international trade, not just regionally but globally. The steady expansion of multilateral trade is critical to the structure of both our economies, to jobs and opportunities for Irish and Brazilian. Through this trade mission and other initiatives, through the crucial human processes of befriending, of cultural empathy and compatability, through business networking, I can clearly see the future development of even stronger and more successful links between Ireland and Brazil. You are helping to make them and I wish you all every success in your negotiations.
Muito obrigada
Go raibh maith agaibh.