FORMER US president Bill Clinton has announced plans to host a special summit in New York to attract increased investment into the Republic.
Speaking at the conclusion of the Global Irish Economic Forum in Dublin on Saturday, Mr Clinton told delegates that the State could do much more to maximise foreign investment by targeting senior business leaders from outside the traditional diaspora.
In particular, he said the State should begin to focus more on emerging markets such as India and Brazil, whose economies are expanding rapidly.
In an upbeat speech, Mr Clinton emphasised that the Republic still had “a lot going for it” and said the world thought more highly of the country than many Irish people did. “I know a lot of people in Ireland are discouraged, but the rest of the world thinks Ireland is pretty great . . . Ireland has to play on that.”
While foreign investment would help the Republic emerge from the financial crisis, he said there was no “silver bullet”. Instead, the road to recovery would lie in taking a broad range of imaginative steps such providing more credit to smaller businesses, large-scale public works to make buildings more eco-friendly, and “crowd-sourcing” initiatives to raise finance for start-up firms.
“This is just unfortunately not one of those things where somebody can come in and give a speech and somebody else can go and pass a law and everything is hunky dory,” Mr Clinton said.
“There are dozens and dozens of things we need to do and those things need to be worked out by people like you working together and exploring options and seeing how to do them.”
On the Government’s handling of the financial crisis, Mr Clinton said bailing out the banks had been the right decision because it increased confidence among prospective investors. “And I’m sure it made a lot of people mad because they thought, ‘we’re helping people who profited out of our misery’. It was the right decision.”
Mr Clinton advised the Republic to implement more aggressive policies to attract manufacturing back into the State, target opportunities in emerging markets and chase investment from US-based multinationals that have significant cash reserves.
“Target the companies rolling in the dough,” he said.
Mr Clinton added that developing indigenous industry was just as important.
He said using the internet to find investors – or “crowd-sourcing” finance initiatives – was quickly becoming a popular way of financing startups and suggested this could be an important way to connect the Irish diaspora with new businesses at home.
Following his address, Mr Clinton took part in a panel discussion with delegates including Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, International Airlines Group chief executive Willie Walsh, U2’s Bono and philanthropist Loretta Brennan Glucksman.
Bono praised the “indomitable spirit” of the Irish and said its people were well suited to the 21st Century because they were “great anarchic thinkers”. This kind of spirit, he said, had helped create the technology sector in California and meant Ireland was particularly suited to the digital age.
Mr Walsh said that while the tourism industry had “lost its way a bit” in recent years, there were major opportunities to attract visitors and trade through better air transport links.
“Ireland needs to take full advantage of the opportunities in the Middle East. Ireland now has direct flights to Abu Dhabi and Dubai. These are great opportunities. Research shows that where business has direct flights, there will be 20 times more trade,” Mr Walsh said.
He also praised the Taoiseach and Tánaiste for their efforts to rebuild Ireland’s reputation and said it was important to have a leader who “looks happy in what he is doing”.
Among the 270 delegates who attended or participated in the weekend forum were: James Hogan, chief executive of Etihad Airlines; Irial Finan, executive vice-president of the Coca-Cola Company; PJ Hough, corporate vice-president of Microsoft; and billionaire philanthropists Hilary and Galen Weston.
