New markets ‘key’ in case of Brexit

Some government departments are dragging their feet in mitigating the risks to Irish business of the UK potentially leaving the European Union.

Irish government agencies and departments need to be more proactive in widening the country’s export base to limit the financial damage of a Brexit to firms here, according to Irish Exporters Association chief executive, Simon McKeever.

While some progress has been made to increase Irish exporters’ presence in emerging markets such as China, India and South America much more needs to be done and in a more urgent manner.

“The first thing to say is at the moment our market risk is concentrated in three big markets: the US, UK, and EU and together those three make up about 80% of our exports so if there’s a shock to anyone of those then that can have an effect on our exports so we need to diversify the risk.

“In China, why aren’t we doing more? China is about 2.5% of our exports at the moment. We need to, in our view, have more people on the ground over there,” Mr McKeever said.

If the UK votes to leave the EU, a two-year period to negotiate an exit will kick in at which time Irish efforts in developing markets will likely intensify.

“Will there need to be [an increased effort]? Absolutely and in fact, why are we waiting for that when we should be doing that now. We need to do that now,” Mr McKeever said.

“So looking at market risk, we need to make sure we’re doing the best thing for the country and what’s in the country’s interest is that we become less dependent on key markets like the US, the UK and the EU.

"In that two year period [of post-Brexit negotiation], absolutely we’d need to ramp it up but there’s no reason why we should be waiting for that? It needs to happen now.

“There is some move afoot to do that but we need to look at this much more strategically and that needs to happen right now rather than waiting for things to happen,” he said.

The association chief said the political uncertainty that has arisen following last month’s general election has deprived the country of a figurehead in Irish efforts to avert Brexit but government departments continue to maintain official contact with their UK counterparts.

A survey of Irish Exporters Association members earlier this week found 95% of firms want the UK to remain in the EU and close to 85% felt it would have harmful effects on exporters.

Mr McKeever was speaking as the association met 20 business in Cork at its first regional National Export Campaign Clinic where emerging market opportunities were discussed.