The first visit by a Taoiseach to China is producing near euphoria among the business representatives who have been accompanying Mr Ahern from Beijing to Shanghai and Hong Kong this week. "We've achieved more in five days with the Taoiseach here than in five years on our own in China," said Mr Joe Moore, director of SIGMA Wireless Technologies which makes aerials for mobile phones and has a base in the city of Chengdu.
Other personnel from 26 companies travelling with Mr Ahern and Minister of State for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mr Tom Kitt - the biggest trade delegation to this part of the world - expressed similar views about the prospect of increased exports to the populous land at the end of the Silk Road.
"The access was really fantastic," said Mr Dan Flinter, chief executive of Enterprise Ireland, the new trade and technology board, describing the high-level meetings with Chinese officials which have taken place every day this week.
For example, he said, the Taoiseach spent two hours in three ministries and the companies travelling with him got an opportunity to put their pitch to them. "It established in the minds of the Chinese that these are really serious companies - this is a market where a prime minister's visit has a unique value."
The most exciting new opportunities for Irish export growth in China are in two areas - software and intellectual services. China is planning major expansion in credit-card use, cable TV, telephone networks, sales equipment, etc., and will need much new computer software in the next 10 to 12 years. It also needs to educate its youth in modern technology. (The delegation included other types of companies, of course - including one hoping to sell ducks to Beijing.)
A good example of an Irish company penetrating the software market is Spectel, a Dublin-based telecoms company which has supplied a teleconference system to Beijing Telecom. "The potential for Spectel in the immense China Telecom's market is enormous," said Mr Gerry Harvey, Asia manager. He firmly believed that the high profile trade mission would accelerate sales.
"We've got sufficient leads on this trip to justify a return visit in six weeks," said Mr Seamus Butler, managing director of BMS and chairman of ISME, the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises organisation. His firm has provided sewage treatment technology to Thailand and Vietnam but "it looks like we will be re-focusing here", he said in Shanghai yesterday.
The delegation contained several representatives of Irish schools and colleges which offer courses to foreign students. The number of Chinese studying in Ireland has risen dramatically in the late 1990s and there are now estimated to be in excess of 2,000 in the Republic. The single-child policy which began in China at the end of the 1970s is now producing the first wave of college-age teenagers, said Mr Raymond Kearns, president of Portobello College, Dublin, which has taken in 35 Chinese students this past year, many for business and computer science courses. His son, Mr Andrew Kearns, director of international programmes, has been conducting seminars recently in such cities as Dalian, Tianjin, Beijing and Shanghai, and meeting parents. "The parents have more money to invest in one child, who is their pride and joy," he said. Chinese students, who pay college fees of £5,000 (sterling) per year upfront, like the Republic because it is an English-speaking country, it has well-developed computer and information technology and visas can be obtained readily, said Mr Raymond Kearns. The Department of Justice is now more flexible about admitting Chinese students than earlier this year, he added.
"We have 1,200 students at Portobello College and I'd be surprised if the number of Chinese students does not rise to 10 per cent in a year," he said.
"I think China is the emerging market and this is a wonderful opportunity," added Mr Kearns, who is establishing links with Nankai University in Shanghai, which boasts the late Chinese premier, Zhou Enlai, as an alumnus. "In the UK, education is in the top five or six of invisible exports. I think Ireland should follow that and the Taoiseach could not have picked a better week to come to China."
Special training programmes for executives of China's state-owned enterprises are being developed by NBC Associates whose managing director, Mr Bill Condon, said: "The visit of the Taoiseach has raised the profile of Ireland and highlighted its significance as an international and European player to Chinese agencies.
"There is enormous potential because this is one part of the training process which is desperately needed in China. Mr Ahern and Mr Kitt made a strong impression with the Chinese people."Undoubtedly, some of the enthusiasm generated by the high level access achieved by members of the delegation will be tempered by the difficulties which can crop up in dealing with Chinese counterparts unused to Western contractual ethics. But this visit is seen by everyone as a huge success. As concrete evidence of a new era in SinoIrish trade, Mr Flinter disclosed that the Chinese will send a trade mission to the Republic at the end of next year.
