Enterprise Ireland chief Frank Ryan is sanguine about meeting his targets in a less benign economic climate, writes John Collins

It is easy to believe Enterprise Ireland is not the most popular with its peers. In 2005, the State agency charged with developing indigenous Irish industry published its strategy document for 2005-2007. It gave clear goals for what it would achieve with the €250 million a year it draws down from the public coffers and was the first State body to do so publicly.

The headline targets included generating € 3 billion in new export sales, increasing the number of firms spending over €100,000 on research and development to 596, and supporting the creation of 210 new start-ups.

Confirming its teacher's pet status, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin confirmed this week that Enterprise Ireland had either reached those targets by the end of last year or was well ahead of schedule to meet them by the end of this year.

Mr Martin was speaking at the launch of the agency's new strategy, Transforming Irish Industry, which covers the period 2008-2010.

According to the Central Statistics Office, last year was a bumper year for exports which were valued at €86.8 billion, their highest value since 2002.

But the macroeconomic outlook, both locally and globally, is now very different with the Government suggesting Irish economic growth will average out at 3.25 per cent over the next three years.

Enterprise Ireland chief executive Frank Ryan is sanguine about how such external factors will influence his ability to generate €4 billion in new export sales, support 200 new high potential start-ups and encourage 55 Irish firms to invest over €2 million annually in R&D by 2010.

"On the macro side, the weakness of the dollar, the reduced global economic growth rate, the price of oil - all those things are obviously worries," says Mr Ryan.

"But they effect all our competitors in a relatively similar manner."

Mr Ryan also points out that the published goals are "stretch targets" which will be averaged out over the three-year period. Given this, the record export performance by Enterprise-Ireland backed firms last year, the increased geographic spread of their trading partners, the growing investment in R&D and the local management talent which has a track record in winning international business, he is confident the agency's client companies will perform well enough to meet them.

"The raw material of the projection is a difference of night and day from where it was 20 years ago," he says. "For that reason we are confident."

In such a hyper-competitive environment, Mr Ryan believes Irish firms have only two options - increase productivity and/or innovate. Enterprise Ireland's Productivity and Competitiveness Improvement fund has supported close to 200 companies to date, while it has issued 200 Innovation Vouchers which give firms €5,000 credit to spend with a university or institute of technology.

To further foster links between third level institutions, it is funding the creation of an honorary chair for entrepreneurship in each of the institutes of technology.

Six key international markets have been identified - South America, Russia, the Gulf states, China, India and Mexico; Irish firms have been successful in some already, while others are relatively virgin territory.

"They are going to grow faster than the US or Europe in the coming years and, if you are ambitious, you have to be part of that rapid growth scenario," explains Mr Ryan.

He is a firm believer in building on the State's existing strengths. Construction and environmental services have been identified as export growth sectors for the next three years while an internationally traded services division has been established to help firms expand their service-based offerings. It will initially focus on financial services, given the local expertise in fund administration and other areas of the business, but will also look at opportunities in education, professional services and business process outsourcing.

Ryan is firmly of the school of thought that outsourcing is not simply a threat to Irish jobs.

"What we call foreign direct investment coming into Ireland, is called outsourcing when it leaves the US or wherever," he says.

"It is certain that, for Irish companies to grow, they will have to have bases overseas and I see no reason why we shouldn't be growing global Irish companies rather than regional ones which only operate in the European market."