As many as 250 Irish companies have expressed interest in doing business with Africa, according to the Minister of State for Trade and Development. Speaking exclusively to Metro Éireann ahead of Africa Day celebrations on 25 May. Minister Joe Costello said more than 200 Irish firms have already signed up for the Africa-Irish Economic Forum scheduled for this October.
As many as 250 Irish companies have expressed interest in doing business with Africa, according to the Minister of State for Trade and Development.
Speaking exclusively to Metro Éireann ahead of Africa Day celebrations on 25 May. Minister Joe Costello said more than 200 Irish firms have already signed up for the Africa-Irish Economic Forum scheduled for this October.
“In the past we engaged on developmental side but now we recognise that what is happening in Africa is quite profound,” he said. “Africa is experiencing the greatest amount of economic development than any part of the world and it has been there for the last number of years … and it is projected that it will continue in the region of an overall 5-10 per cent annual growth in Africa for quite a number of years to come.”
Minister Costello said both the view of the Government and his personal view of the situation is that aid alone is not going to develop a developing economy.
“There needs to be economic engagement and from that point of view we are very anxious to ensure that we maximise our trade with Africa, that we maximise our investment and business relationships with Africa,” he said. “So it is going to be multi-faceted engagement in the future.
“That is part of the reasons that I am going to Africa so much. I am setting up structures in Africa, setting up hubs in South Africa, west Africa, east Africa and north Africa so that Irish people and Irish businesses – as well as the development aid – will continue to create new structures for the private sector and indeed the public sector to engage with Africa.
“So it is a very exciting combination for me to be both trade minister and development minister … There are quite a few European countries now beginning to look at the links between development and trade.”
Asked if this new engagement with African countries he is promoting will be of mutual benefit, the minister said that is the way the Government sees things.
“We don’t want to see a new ‘Scramble for Africa’ as happened in the 19th century,” he added.
According to Minister Costello, the Government has published its Africa strategy that highlights Ireland’s engagement and how it will be conducted. He also emphasised that the new opportunities he wants Ireland to develop with African society and companies would be based on partnership or ‘ethical engagement’.
“What we tell our private sector companies as well as the public sector is that we want the engagement with Africa to be on a partnership level. We want it to be on the same principle as our development aid has been over the years the missionaries have been involved and we don’t want them in any way to tarnish that.”
He continued: “I hope we would be able to build that into the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals because we are anxious to ensure that the role of the private sector and the corporate sector are built into the new proposal for development … That would be a new dimension because traditionally the marketplace has operated to some extent on an exploitative basis and we don’t want to see that happening.”
On the role of the Africans in the diaspora, Minister Costello said the Government is anxious to involve them and “that they would also engage with their home countries because there’s always that attachment with their countries, and they would like to see them improving and developing, so that is going to be another element of it.”
The minister also praised Africans in Ireland for their contribution to Irish society.
“Africans are very organised,” he said. “Of all of the peoples who have come to Ireland in recent times the Africans are a much more cohesive set of groupings than many of the other countries that have come, and they are very patriotic in one sense, they are very connected with the countries they have come from.
“And they are also very anxious to get involved in Ireland. They have put down roots in Ireland – that’s a healthy type of development. They engage with Irish authorities, they engage with Irish Aid.”
The minister added that a new policy he put together and launched recently “envisages a major role for the diaspora in terms of both their engagement here in Ireland and likewise to promote their engagement” in terms of volunteering and developing economic ties and entrepreneurship.
Minister Costello plans to visit Nigeria in November with a trade mission of Irish companies looking for African partners to do business in Nigeria and Ghana.
