Ireland Government Efforts To Promote Growth and Investment

Ireland is open for business and the Government is committed to supporting export growth and encouraging inward investment. The government has placed the embassy network to promote Ireland’s economic and trade interests overseas for economic growth.

The Government Trade Strategy has also set out concrete targets in trade, tourism and investment to be met by 2015, as well as a programme of actions to achieve the targets, and works closely with the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (DJEI) and other Departments and State agencies in implementing this strategy.

Ireland Connected: Trading and Investing in a Dynamic World, is a cohesive, whole-of-government strategy that builds on existing successes and sets ambitious targets for Ireland’s exports, foreign direct investment, tourism and international education. Ireland Connected is the successor to the previous Trade, Tourism and Investment Strategy, which ran from 2010 to 2015 and saw extraordinary success despite low growth in the global economy during that period.

Trade policy, trade strategy, sectoral development, and implementation of enterprise objectives sit with different Government Departments and agencies. Ireland Connected provides the framework ad strategic direction towards 2025 that aims to harness Ireland’s collective expertise to realise their ambition in the face of unprecedented challenges.

Trade policy, which deals with the regulation of imports and exports, is dealt with by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation.

The government established of State agencies like Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland (Industrial Development Agency), BordBia, Tourism Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland to help and encourage investment and entrepreneurship. These efforts are a show of its commitment to prioritize attributes and skills at all levels of the education system, improve credit flow to business by enhancing tax-based investment schemes, provide state backed capital funds and venture capital, improve innovation and technology support for start-ups and to simplify and reform enterprise support structures.

The government also organizes and chairs Ireland’s Joint Economic Commissions every two years with high-growth as well as emerging market countries.

These meetings are aimed at increasing trade and investment and development of economic, business, scientific and technological co-operation.

The relatively low corporate tax rate of 12.5 percent plus the changes in universal service charge (USC) rates and thresholds in the Irish budget 2015 also impacts positively on international business.