Europe Minister Dara Murphy welcomes report confirming SMEs will benefit from EU-US trade deal

Fine Gael Cork North Central TD, Minister of State for European Affairs, Dara Murphy, has welcomed a European Commission report published this week which confirmed that the EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would remove significant barriers currently faced by SMEs when trying to trade with the US.

“Ireland, as the natural transatlantic bridge between the US and Europe is best-placed of all the EU Member States to benefit from an EU-US trade deal, particularly given our close historical, cultural and economic links to the US. Ireland, as a small open economy, is ideally placed as the European gateway for US multinationals looking to expand into the 500 million European consumer market.

“IDA Ireland has done an excellent job in attracting leading US technology and pharmaceutical companies to set up EU headquarters here. US Foreign Direct Investment to Ireland is already the highest in the EU. A major part of the Government’s Action Plan for Jobs, with over 90,000 jobs created to date, is to work with US multinationals in the regions, such as Cork, to develop clusters where SMEs can work with major US corporations on technology partnerships and develop new markets for their services.

“A successful outcome to the ongoing EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership talks, would be to present export-orientated Irish SMEs looking to scale up, with access to the largest consumer goods market in the world. The subsequent benefit for local employment across the Irish software, agriculture and food sectors could be substantial. A recent report commissioned by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation indicated that TTIP would boost Ireland’s GDP by 1.1%, increase real national income by €2.4billion and create between 5,000 and 10,000 extra jobs in exporting sectors.

“I recently met US ambassador O’Malley in Cork to discuss the EU-US Trade Partnership (TTIP) amongst other topics, and it is accepted that the economic benefits to Irish SME’s of reduced trade barriers are significant, and furthermore would help to build sustainable employment into the future.”