New wave of US groups seek Irish deals

A new wave of US companies plans to invest in Ireland over the next year, the country's ambassador told the American Chamber of Commerce, Ireland, yesterday.

Addressing a chamber lunch to mark Independence Day, US ambassador Mr James C Kenny said he was optimistic that Ireland would continue to attract high-profile investments like Bell Labs and Intel.

But he added that another group of smaller companies was also keen to invest in the Republic. "There is a second wave coming of smaller-sized companies that are looking for partnerships with Irish companies," he said.

Mr Kenny pointed out that companies with less than 100 workers made up two-thirds of the US economy. "While we would like to see the big investments, and we'd like to see them coming in every week, we should also look to small and medium-sized companies," he told the gathering.

He added that the Republic's ability to attract US investment woke "a lot of people up" during last weekend's EU-US summit, particularly the fact that Ireland drew twice as much inward investment from the US as China.

However, Mr Kenny also pointed out that investment was not simply flowing one way.

He said a recent Congressional delegation to Ireland raised the issue of US companies "outsourcing" jobs to other regions.

"But insourcing to the US comes to $60 billion a year and that is greater than any outsourcing, and that is something that we need to say," he said.

Mr Ciarán Ennis, president of the American Chamber of Commerce, Ireland, warned that the EU needed to focus its attention on economic and trade issues.

"With the new president also nominated, the Commission must now focus on economic issues, particularly as EU growth rates remain sluggish and unemployment is an increasing problem across the union," he said.

Mr Ennis pointed out that EU-US trade was worth $2.5 trillion a year, and argued that the trading relationship between the two should be at the top of the EU agenda. "The most important trading relationship in the world today is between the US and the EU," he said.

He said that the Irish and EU American chambers had identified a number of priorities for the business community that it would like to see moved forward as part of the Lisbon Agenda (the EU's plan to transform itself into the world's most competitive economy by 2010). These included less regulation and progress on developing the single market.

"Sluggish growth can only be addressed by increased competitiveness and investment," he said.