Enterprise Ireland client companies’ export sales to top €1bn this year

ENTERPRISE Ireland has said that the combined value of new export sales of client companies, this year, should amount to around €1 billion — with the future outlook being “more positive now than at any point over the past three years.”

In its end-of-year statement, published yesterday, the state agency estimated that client companies this year recovered approximately 70% of the losses they made in 2009.

“Irish companies are using this renewed confidence to aggressively target opportunities in international markets,” the body said in its report.

It added: “Enterprise Ireland businesses reported an expansion in new export orders each and every month in 2010 and this trend is set to continue. Irish companies have withstood the severe conditions they have faced and have emerged leaner, stronger and with a greater appetite for international growth than ever before.”

The statement said 2010 was a year of strong recovery of export growth ““which has helped to sustain employment in Irish companies”.

Nearly 8,200 jobs were created by EI client firms this year. Full-time employment in related firms was actually down by 2.3%, year-on-year, to 156,577 — but this, according to the agency, marked “an important stabilisation” in employment.

“As key export markets have strengthened, and Irish businesses have responded to opportunities presented, the conditions for job growth have improved. Of particular importance was the recovery of the food sector, which is Ireland’s biggest indigenous industry,” the statement said.

Enterprise Ireland’s chief executive Frank Ryan said the agency will continue to identify and help secure overseas market opportunities for Irish companies throughout 2011.

“This will not only assist growth in exporting businesses, but also in the wider economy. The full focus of Enterprise Ireland is aimed at the ultimate objective of increasing exports and, consequently, employment here in Ireland,” he added.