Irish business people from all over Asia gathered in Singapore yesterday for the inaugural Asia-Pacific Ireland Business Forum, aimed at forging closer links within Ireland's Far Eastern business community.
Some 70 entrepreneurs, professionals and representatives of government agencies attended the event, which was opened by Ireland's Ambassador to Singapore, Richard O'Brien. The delegates included Irish people from Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, China and Singapore.
The event was timed to coincide with the Asian GAA Games, which start today and are expected to bring 500 Irish people to Singapore. Among those attending the event was former tánaiste Dick Spring, who was also due to tog out for Shanghai in the games.
"The real value in this forum is that there are very few of us in the context of half the world's population in Asia, so you've got to maximise your resources. There is a huge resource of experience here in Asia across a spread of categories," said Mr Spring, who is chairman of Fexco and Altobridge.
"It's a good opportunity for people here to have input into the thinking of the Department of Foreign Affairs and get feedback from Ireland."
The annual GAA competition is the largest annual gathering of Irish people in Asia and has become a useful networking opportunity.
Irish people are involved in a wide array of business activities in Asia, including management consultancy, IT services, owning pubs and restaurants and running language schools.
The Asia-Pacific market is growing in importance for Ireland and the Government has tightened its focus on Asia in recent years with policy documents such as the Asia Strategy.
Alan Hobbs, manager of Enterprise Ireland's High Potential Start-Ups programme, said the forum was a great opportunity to gather a large cross-section of Irish business in Asia. "From Enterprise Ireland's perspective, it would be great to have more co-ordination between Irish business people out here. You can see the skills and the willingness to share experiences here, but there is no formal link between people," said Mr Hobbs. "Hopefully this will lead to a more co-ordinated regional structure to take advantage of what's there. A single point to access people would be useful."
He was hoping to pursue his programme of promoting Ireland as a location for high-potential start-ups, focusing particularly on getting Irish expatriates to locate in Ireland.
According to Des Scully, president of Gerard Consulting in South Korea, one of the keys to succeeding in Asia was being aware of cultural differences between the different countries. "Learn about it and get on with it," he said.
Robert Agnew, managing director of Matrix Services in Hong Kong, said the Government had a role to play in developing networking and that the various Irish chambers of commerce should also be encouraged to increase co-ordination.
