Simon McKeever
CEO, Irish Exporters Association
Today, Ireland boasts a diverse range of sectors, including technology, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and services.
Our geographical position offers access to the EU and UK markets. We serve as a strategic gateway to the continent’s single market, providing Irish-based businesses with access to over 450 million consumers. Additionally, close trading ties with Britain ensure that products can reach millions of people within a matter of hours.
Balancing FDI with entrepreneurship
Our highly educated and skilled workforce also ensures that companies operating here have access to the very best talent. This, coupled with an outward-looking business-friendly environment, has been a key driver in attracting and retaining high-value foreign direct investment (FDI) and helped with the development and growth of many successful home-based startups.
These entrepreneurial enterprises have played a significant role in driving Ireland’s indigenous growth and sustaining economic momentum in recent times. In an economy heavily reliant on FDI, fostering a strong indigenous economy and supporting the entrepreneurs behind it is crucial. This approach not only balances the industrial mix but also serves as a buffer against global economic uncertainties in the current climate.
Our highly educated and skilled workforce
also ensures that companies operating
here have access to the very best talent.
Making Ireland a startup hub
With the support of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Enterprise Ireland, Ireland has developed an enterprise policy that excels at scaling these small to medium-sized indigenous exporting businesses.
We can go further. Learning from Chile and their ‘Start Up Chile’ model, we should encourage startups from all nationalities and industries to come to Ireland. Here, they will have the opportunity to coalesce and learn from global multinationals, innovate alongside their homegrown peers and gain access to co-financing and mentorship. I believe that this approach offers Ireland the opportunity to be at the very centre of a global entrepreneurship culture and to continue to grow and prosper as the world economic order evolves.
