By Business & Finance The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton TD today concludes a four-day trade and investment mission to Singapore and Malaysia during which contracts worth €25mn and significant new business partnerships were announced across the financial services, ICT and education sectors.
These announcements underline the growing opportunities for Irish companies in the developing ASEAN region.
The mission of 42 Irish companies was organised by Enterprise Ireland in close cooperation with IDA Ireland, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Embassies of Ireland in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
While in Singapore, Minister Bruton also led the first ever joint Irish, UK and Northern Ireland trade mission, along with UK Transport Minister Stephen Hammond and Northern Ireland Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster.
Among the announcements made during the mission were:
- Tango Telecom (Limerick) announced a major expansion deal with Robi Axiata, one of the three largest mobile operators in Bangladesh.
- cut-e, a world leader in the design and implementation of innovative online tests and questionnaires for recruitment, selection and development, signed a deal to provide online psychometric assessments to Morgan Advanced Materials in Asia.
- ICDL Asia, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ECDL Foundation, announced they have entered into an agreement with RVi Group Singapore to make ICDL available throughout Myanmar.
- Quest Computing (Dublin) announced that its ASEAN subsidiary, AIMS Software, is partnering with Tech Mahindra to provide joint sales and marketing focus in addition to local System Integration delivery capability.
- Atlantic Projects Company signed an MOU (memorandum of understanding) with Malaysian company Serba Dinamik Group.
Speaking from Kuala Lumpur before departing for Ireland, Minister Bruton said: “Supporting increased exports by Irish companies is at the very heart of our Action Plan for Jobs, and we have put in place a range of new and increased supports to deliver this goal, including doubling the number of trade missions. Growing markets like South East Asia offer huge opportunities for Irish companies.
“The contracts announced and the partnerships signed during the last four days clearly demonstrate the scale of opportunity for Irish companies willing to commit to doing business in this vast region of 600million people. This trade mission to Singapore and Malaysia is part of a continued drive by Government to target growth markets and support exporting companies to sell more of their products and services abroad, and help sustain and create jobs in Ireland.
“I am also delighted to say that the first joint trade mission by Ireland, Northern Ireland and UK was highly successful. It attracted an impressive list of companies that demonstrated our considerable combined strengths in the aerospace sector at Asia’s largest airshow. I am confident this initiative will lead to enhanced opportunities for our companies in this important sector, and ultimately more jobs in Ireland.”
Julie Sinnamon, CEO of Enterprise Ireland, who accompanied Minister Bruton on the mission, commented: “ASEAN offers serious opportunities for Ireland. Irish companies and education institutions are winning more and more business in the region matched by an increasing interest among ASEAN companies in Ireland as a location for setting up new operations to target the European market. Trade missions are a key part of Enterprise Ireland’s strategy to grow Irish export sales by opening doors, making high-level introductions and helping our client companies to exploit the opportunities that exist in global markets.”
