Irish exporters will have a chance to highlight their products in the Millennium Export Excellence Awards, the sponsors said yesterday. AIB Capital Markets and the Irish Exporters' Association said the purpose of the awards was to pay tribute to exporting excellence as the Irish economy headed into the next century.

The awards will have a total prize fund of £25,000 and be run on a sectoral basis. The three groupings will be: food and agri-business, pharmaceutical and chemical, and IT or e-commerce.

To enter, companies must have a turnover of £7.5 million and export sales of £5 million.

"Our exporters have shown that they can compete with the best in the world and in the most competitive markets," said Mr Colm Doherty, the newly appointed managing director of AIB Capital Markets.