merrion street

Taoiseach Enda Kenny today gave a speech at Tsinghua University in Beijing. The Taoiseach finishes his four day visit to China today.

The Taoiseach said:

On behalf of the people of Ireland and of my Government, I am deeply appreciative of the warm welcome and generous hospitality shown to me and my delegation during our visit, and of the extremely productive discussions we have had.

2012, the dragon year, is an important year for the development of China-Ireland relations, but it is also important in other respects.

At the global level, this year sees the continuing empowerment of what used to be called the developing world, in Asia, in Africa and in Latin America.

Global challenges include pressure on the environment, and adapting multilateral and international financial institutions to meet the requirements, challenges and shifts in power of the second decade of the 21^st century.

We also see serious work being done to realign and rectify the European economy, as we deal collectively with the challenges of recovering from the worst international financial and economic crisis to strike the western world for many decades.

The Taoiseach spoke of Ireland's relationship with China:

The positive development of our bilateral relationship underlines that geographical distance and differences in size are no barriers to the development of a warm, friendly and deep relationship.

Ireland is a small country with a population of less than 5 million on the western edge of Europe – less than one third of the population of Beijing.

China is the most populous nation on earth, and is the second most powerful economy on earth. Despite these differences in size the parallels in our respective national experiences can serve as a basis for widening and deepening that relationship.

Both our countries have long histories with a strong sense of commitment to culture, family and tradition. And we have both radically transformed economically and socially over the past forty years.

The Taoiseach highlighted opportunities for Foreign Direct Investment in Ireland:

Ireland has become the preferred location in Europe for foreign direct investment from the US and other countries.

I believe that our experience presents valuable opportunities for China.

Let me give one example: many Chinese leaders have visited and studied our pioneering Shannon economic zone, most recently Vice President Xi Jinping during his visit last month.

More generally, in recent years, Irish trade with China is growing prosperously. The number of Irish companies with a permanent trading or business presence in China has increased 300% in five years.

In addition to areas such as software, high technology and education, there are many opportunities for greater Sino/Irish trade and exchanges in food, agriculture, services, cultural and people to people exchanges.

In the education sector, our universities have many collaboration agreements with Chinese universities, including Tsinghua.

The Irish narrative of transformation has many complementarities with China’s own process of reform. I want to build on these for our mutual benefit.

The Taoiseach concluded by setting out goals for Ireland's relationship with China in the future:

In closing I want to share with you some of my main objectives for the future relationship between Ireland and China. Widening and deepening this relationship serves the interests of both countries.

• We will strengthen our political and economic dialogue with China;
• We will do so on a basis of friendship and mutual respect;
• We will work to broaden cooperation further into science, high technology, food and agriculture as well as trade and investment;
• I attach particular importance to developing people to people exchanges.

I am especially pleased, therefore, that during the official talks in my visit here we have agreed to conclude a strategic partnership between Ireland and China for mutually beneficial cooperation, covering these and other important areas.

I hope that many of you will visit Ireland in the future. I thank you for your hospitality and look forward to the next steps in building ever-stronger relations between our two countries.