MINISTER FOR Finance Michael Noonan has begun a four-day trip to the US designed to promote investment in Ireland.
Mr Noonan will attend a series of meetings with investors set up by the National Treasury Management Agency and the Central Bank in a bid to encourage fundraising. The Minister will have at least 15 engagements on the trip, however no formal public engagements are scheduled, a Department of Finance spokesman said.
Mr Noonan is expected to meet investors who may be interested in acquiring the $10 billion US loan book of nationalised lender Anglo Irish Bank. The spokesman said the meetings were “commercially sensitive”.
Mr Noonan travelled to the US yesterday and will be in New York today and tomorrow. He will visit the New York Stock Exchange as part of the trip. On Wednesday, he will travel to Washington, where he will meet International Monetary Fund officials to review the implementation of the EU-IMF bailout deal. He will also meet representatives of the World Bank.
Negotiations on the interest rate on the EU-IMF loans are not on the agenda, the spokesman said. Mr Noonan will return to New York on Thursday for the final day of his trip.
