Minister Martin leads Trade Promotion Visit to Australia

Enterprise Ireland Push to Grow Business for Irish Companies

Mr Micheál Martin, TD, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, today Monday 21 November 2005, said that trade and investment relationships between Ireland and Australia are thriving as never before. He was speaking in Sydney at the start of a one-week Enterprise Ireland business promotion visit to Australia. “Two-way trade in goods and services between our two countries is currently worth over 2.6 billion Australian dollars. Australia’s total exports to Ireland have increased by almost 70% over the past five years to A$571 million last year and sales by Irish companies in Australia currently amount to over A$2 billion. There is strong indication of continued growth this year.” Minister Martin said.

During his visit, Mr Martin will further raise Ireland’s profile as a world-class supplier of sophisticated products and services and increase Australian awareness of Ireland’s recent economic performance. “I will use this opportunity to reinforce Ireland's commitment to working in partnership with Australia at Government, State Agency and business levels and I look forward to working with a number of Irish companies in their pursuit of increased business in the Australian market.” he said

“Irish-owned companies in particular have increased their sales in Australia almost tenfold over the past seven years to A$103 million – and this pattern of growth is accelerating. There are now 50 Irish companies with offices in Australia, up from 19 in 2001, and they cover a wide range of sectors, including information technology, telecoms and financial services software, eLearning, engineering and agribusiness, manufacturing services and consumer products.” He continued.

Irish companies that are building a market presence in Australia include:

• Fineos, a leading innovator of banking and insurance software, which has successfully launched in Asia Pacific. CommInsure, the insurance arm of the Commonwealth Bank, has recently deployed a Fineos solution.
• ValidSoft, a software development company, which is working with one of Australia’s leading investment banks and other clients to provide innovative two-factor authentication security solutions
• Anam a video production technology company is being used for the delivery of video services in the rapidly growing 3G market in Australia
• Changing Worlds is providing intelligent portal solutions in the wireless sector

• PixAlert’s expertise and technology is being used globally to combat illegal and inappropriate content and images in the workplace.
• Vilicom, which recently set up operations in Australia, is Ireland’s leading mobile network engineering group specializing in mobile engineering and management
• Skillsoft provides enterprise e-learning solutions to business and IT professionals and has been very successful in building its client base in Australia
• Combilift produces highly innovative and adaptable forklifts for export to more than 30 countries including Australia

Other Irish companies that have made impressive contributions to global business, and are forging a presence in Australasia are Omnipay, Deep Insight, Comit and Norkom.