4-city IDA mission to target investments from 20 world-leading and start-up companies in technology life-sciences and financial services
The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton TD, departs this weekend to lead a five-day, four-city investment mission to the West Coast of the USA, to meet companies considering investing and creating jobs in Ireland.
The IDA mission to Seattle, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and San Diego will focus particularly on companies in the technology sector and the Minister will meet 20 companies ranging from start-ups to multi-billion dollar world-leading companies.
During the five full days of the trip, the 20 companies whom the Minister, who will be accompanied by Barry O’Leary, CEO of IDA Ireland, as well as other officials, will meet include:
· 15 technology companies
· 2 health/life-sciences companies
· Companies in the financial services, green technology and consumer products sectors
· Companies with combined annual revenues of over €290billion
· Companies employing a total of over 600,000 people worldwide
· Companies with operations already in Ireland as well as companies who may be considering investing here for the first time
· Household name multinational technology companies as well as start-ups employing fewer than 100 people
Minister Bruton will also meet members of the US media to communicate the message that Ireland is open for business.
The ICT sector currently employs approximately 100,000 people in Ireland, and the number of people employed in the sector has increased by more than 5,000 since March 2011.
Before departing, Minister Bruton said:
“A key part of the Government’s plans for jobs and growth is to attract more international companies to invest in Ireland. Through the Action Plan for Jobs, we are continuing to improve our competitiveness, to improve our skills, and to undertake a very intensive programme of trade and investment missions. The multinational sector has performed well in the last 18 months after a very challenging three years between 2008 and 2010, with 12,000 jobs added, and very significant investments like those from PayPal, Mylan, Apple, EA Games and Northern Trust.
“We must work hard to build on this performance, to attract more investments, to target more fast-growing emerging companies as well as global leaders, and to ensure that when these companies come to Ireland they provide even greater benefit to Ireland through supply chains and involvement in the local economy. I look forward to the intensive programme of meetings this week, to discussing these companies’ future plans and where Ireland can fit into them, and I hope that this can lead to investments and jobs for Ireland in the near future”.
Barry O’Leary, CEO of IDA Ireland said, ‘This FDI mission will involve meetings with some of the biggest companies in the world. We will be meeting with senior management to detail the unique advantages there are to running part of their businesses from Ireland. Many of the companies we will meet have existing operations in Ireland - we will be discussing expansion opportunities with these clients. Our US-based IDA Executives have also secured meetings with several high-growth companies. The high-growth sector is a key target for the IDA – we will be explaining the benefits that Ireland can offer them as a location from which to grow their business rapidly.”
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS
This is Minister Bruton’s eleventh major trade/investment mission since taking office in March 2011. Other missions undertaken include:
· Four IDA investment missions, two to the USA east coast, one to the west coast and one encompassing the East Coast, South and Mid-West
· Three Enterprise Ireland trade missions, one to Saudi Arabia and India, one to the south-eastern USA, one to France accompanied by a total of over 100 Irish companies looking to break into new export markets
· A 7-day joint IDA/EI mission to China led by the Taoiseach
· A 5-day EI/IDA trip to the west coast of the USA built around St Patrick’s Day
· A large number of shorter trips to Europe for EU business as well as trade/investment objectives, including most recently a one-day trip to Bucharest with the Taoiseach to attend the European People’s Party Congress in advance of the European Council meeting.