REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT BUSINESS LUNCH HOSTED BY THE AMBASSADOR OF IRELAND STROMBURG
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT BUSINESS LUNCH HOSTED BY THE AMBASSADOR OF IRELAND STROMBURG WEDNESDAY, 27 FEBRUARY, 2008
Meine Damen und Herren, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Martin and I are delighted to have this opportunity to join this important gathering of the Irish and German business communities.
Thank you all for taking the time and trouble to be here and for showcasing so emphatically the strength and importance of the business links between our two countries. Though we live in an age of remote communications there is nothing that will ever replace the intimacy and spontaneity of a shared meal, of a conversation between strangers that leads in all sorts of exciting directions opening up mutual interest, curiosity, insight and respect for these things are resources on which to build good business and successful partnerships.
The evidence suggests that we feel comfortable doing business with each other and have both found and developed a compatibility around shared values and pragmatic outlooks. We have a good sense of how the other thinks and operates. So I hope that this lunch will help participants to look with fresh eyes at new and emerging opportunities to broaden and deepen what is already a highly successful business relationship between our two countries. The scene as it is already set is a good news story.
Taking a broad look at that story we see that Germany is Ireland’s most important trading partner in continental Europe and our fourth most important trading partner globally. Total trade with Germany in 2006 was valued at €11.9 billion and there is considerable potential to drive that figure up, building on Ireland’s strengths as a knowledge economy and especially in sectors such as financial services, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, not to mention Irish food and drink which already have a very high profile here in Germany and indeed at this lunch.
Taking a closer look behind the broad economic picture we find that currently there are around 150 German companies based all over Ireland. Their contribution to our economic strength, to rural and urban renewal is greatly appreciated for they account for some 13,500 jobs in areas as diverse as packaging, chemicals, construction and the food sector. Taking the traffic the other way, Irish companies have also now begun to invest in Germany and of course we have seen the growing phenomenon of private Irish citizens investing in the property market here. The tourism market from Germany is also booming. Our visitor numbers from here have increased by almost half in the last five years and we hope that half a million Germans will visit Ireland, north and south, this year, thanks to the excellent partnerships between tour operators here, carriers, the Irish travel trade and Tourism Ireland.
My visit takes place at a time when Germany is enjoying a strong economic revival which offers Irish companies exciting possibilities to do business in a country which is the world’s number one exporting nation and which accounted for over ten per cent of world trade in 2006. I am told that with substantial job creation here over the past two years, purchaser confidence is higher than it has been for several decades which is good news for those with goods and services to sell and to buy. For all the turbulence in global markets, we in Ireland enjoy a favourable economic outlook underpinned by the strengths which investors have found so attractive - a highly skilled, well-educated and flexible workforce, a positive business environment, a favourable tax regime, a stable industrial relations environment underpinned by a very successful social partnership and an ambient, confident can-do attitude.
The companies represented here are well-placed to make the most of this time of opportunity and of course you have the comfort and encouragement of professional, first-class support from the State agencies who are active on our behalf in the German market and whose hard work and dedication account for much of our success here. I want to thank those agencies for all they do to make the wheels of commerce glide smoothly and speedily.
Enterprise Ireland, represented here at a senior level by Gerry Murphy, Giles O’Neill and Angela Byrne, provide the highest quality service to Irish exporters of goods and services. Bord Bia, represented here by Liam MacHale, does similarly sterling work on behalf of food and drink exporters. Bord Iascaigh Mhara, represented by Tom McLaughlin, supports our fish and seafood exporters. One of Tom’s most important contacts is our host at the Stromburg today, Herr Johann Lafer, whom I had the pleasure of meeting earlier and who is responsible for the superb cuisine which we will be enjoying today. IDA Ireland, represented by Brendan Rossiter and his colleagues, has been instrumental in bringing the large numbers of German investors to Ireland of whom I spoke earlier. Tourism Ireland, represented by Siobhan McManamy and her colleagues, is behind the significant increase in visitor numbers which we have experienced in recent years.
Together these agencies are a formidable team but only with your help does their energy and skill translate into commerce, investment, jobs and profits that bring benefits to the people of Germany and the people of Ireland. We can measure outcomes in many ways but on a day like this it is worth remarking that the enduring friendships and contacts which open us up to one another socially and culturally as well as economically are an essential part of growing as a family of nations and states within the European Union. It is these bonds, handshake to handshake, smile to smile, joint enterprise to joint enterprise that reveal and reinforce our common European citizenship and sustain our shared future. There is a nobility of purpose in all of this as between us in a massive variety of ways we make our countries and our Union sources of peace, prosperity, partnership and decent human values.
Enjoy this lunch. I hope it will be of value in human and business terms to each of you, your companies and to both Ireland and Germany.