(BPT) - Enterprise Ireland, the Irish State agency that partners with businesses to develop Ireland's international trade and innovation, announces their end-of-year results highlighting how Ireland's highly innovative base of exporting companies has thrived despite the challenges of the pandemic. With the help of Enterprise Ireland, Irish companies won 1,375 contracts internationally, allowing them to grow in international markets, including the United States.
One of the ways this was done was through a record €61.6m ($70m) funding to help 341 COVID-19 impacted companies grow despite the challenges of 2021. Understanding the ever-changing corporate landscape, the agency also announced its 2022-2024 strategy, Leading in a Changing World to accelerate the development of world-class Irish companies to achieve leading positions in global markets. This strategy will serve to further the innovative work facilitated through Enterprise Ireland's supports, ensuring the trade and innovation agency continues to lead in the development and transformation of business.
According to data accumulated by The Economist comparing the economic growth of 23 OECD countries, Ireland's GDP growth between Q4 2019 and Q3 2021 was 22.3%, more than double the next highest. With drivers such as climate change, the acceleration of digital transformation across industries, and changing trends in globalization, Enterprise Ireland recognizes that it's critical that governments strengthen indigenous enterprise with a global mindset.
These drivers resulted in three transformational imperatives for business development: climate action, digitalization, and innovation. To ensure action on these imperatives, the agency highlighted five key strategic ambitions in their new strategy with a vision to create solutions for global challenges, delivering sustainable prosperity:
- Export-focused Irish enterprises delivering growth across all regions
- Ireland as a world-leading location to start and scale a business
- Irish enterprises achieving competitive advantage through customer-led innovation and digitalization
- Irish enterprises leading globally on sustainability and achieving climate action targets
- Enterprise Ireland providing world-leading service to the companies it supports
At their core, these objectives aim to boost the productivity of established businesses and connect enterprises with innovation opportunities globally to maximize their growth and job creation potential. This will be done through an expansion of Enterprise Ireland's funding, advisory and capability building supports to maximize their productivity and competitiveness.
Over 110,000 people are now employed by Irish-owned companies in the United States. Of these, over 900 Enterprise Ireland supported companies operating in the United States directly employ more than 87,000 people in the United States. This support has continued to grow throughout the pandemic with over 120 Irish companies establishing presences in the United States since January 2020.
'The work and skills necessary to succeed in the next decade are different from those today,' mentions Sean Davis, Regional Director of North America for Enterprise Ireland. 'This presents us with an increased opportunity to collaborate with companies globally. The longstanding relationship between Ireland and the United States has never been stronger as evident in Ireland ranking 9th in Foreign Direct Investment contributors to the United States economy. Our new strategy ensures that these partnerships are at the forefront of business decisions throughout their entire growth cycle.'
This global mindset is critical to the new strategy with one of the key goals: increase and diversify exports by continuing to strengthen Enterprise Ireland's network of 40 international offices with key market advisors that understand their local business community needs in order to expand market reach, accelerate diversification, and deliver sustainable export growth.
To learn more about Enterprise Ireland's work and how to partner with them, go to: https://irishadvantage.us/.
About Enterprise Ireland: Enterprise Ireland is the Irish State agency that works with Irish enterprises to help them start, grow, innovate and win export sales in global markets. Enterprise Ireland partners with entrepreneurs, Irish businesses, and the research and investment communities to develop Ireland's international trade, innovation, leadership, and competitiveness.