Minister for Small Business, John Perry T.D., today (Friday) announced that Irish firms secured €5.1m in new deals during this week’s Enterprise Ireland technology trade mission to Australia. The announcement comes on foot of a strong export performance in 2010 in which Irish exports to Australia grew by €26m.
Making the announcement Minister Perry said:
"This was a highly successful and constructive trade mission. Not only did Irish companies secure €5.1m in prestigious contracts but we also opened up a number of doors in strategic sectors such as medical technologies and financial services.
"Ireland’s technologies closely match Australia’s needs and their interest in our technologies was evident from the constructive engagement we received both at industry and political level. Based on this positive mission, we are confident that Irish exports to Australia will enjoy further growth over the coming two to three years."
Business partnerships formed and new contracts signed during the mission included:
· Across the financial services industry Corvil Networks and Barracuda FX achieved significant success in securing new business within the Australian Banking system.
· Across the healthcare sector, Pulselearning secured over €170k in new business with Mercy Health and several large Australian Institutions. Health Care Informed secured over €200k in new business with leading Australian healthcare institutions. Engineering documentation management company, Zutec, experienced significant success in new business with The Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne and The Fiona Stanley Hospital, Perth.
· Across Enterprise and Government, Daon, who have worked closely with Enterprise Ireland, secured and delivered the first phase of a multi-million dollar contract with a key regional financial institution, and world leading customer retention and employee performance company Deep Insight have secured over €100k in new business with two of Australia’s largest corporations.
· In the rapidly evolving knowledge services industry, Intuition secured a significant new contract with a large investment bank.
45 Irish technology firms participated in the mission, which focussed on developing Irish software and services exports to Australia and included firms from technology sectors including IT and mobility, telecommunications, e-learning, financial services and e-health.
The Australia mission was the first in a series of overseas trade missions and events that Enterprise Ireland has planned to take place over the next four months to push Irish exports in key high potential markets. Next week, Minister Bruton will lead a trade mission to the Southern States of the US while trade missions to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Quatar, and South Africa are also planned to take place between now and the end of the year.