IRELAND IS open for business and has much to offer the Russian marketplace, President Mary McAleese told a gathering of Russian and Irish business people in Moscow last night.
She said Irish and Russian people had much in common, “not least our informality and sense of fun”, and she suspected this made it easier for the two countries to do business together.
Trade between Ireland and Russia is worth about €2 billion a year, she said, and there was great potential to increase this business.
Mrs McAleese was speaking at an Enterprise Ireland trade mission dinner on the first day of her State visit to Russia. She noted that her visit was also the first official engagement by an Irish president in the Russian Federation.
“While Ireland and Russia frame the edges of the Continent of Europe and have quite a large distance between us geographically, we are bound together by a common European history and heritage and by many surprising, often not so well-known links, both historic and contemporary,” she said.
Mrs McAleese said the two countries also shared a most valuable asset – their people. “In Ireland we excel in that person-to-person relationship . . . Our business culture is one of welcome, of encouragement and support.”
Representatives of 30 Irish businesses and Minister of State for Enterprise Billy Kelleher are on a week-long trade mission to Russia to coincide with Mrs McAleese’s visit. Those represented vary from the family-owned Monaghan company Silver Hill Foods to the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
About half of the businesses are in the information communications technology sector.
Mrs McAleese noted that several Irish universities and institutes of technology were taking part in the mission, and looked forward to the development of stronger links between both countries in the field of education.
Earlier, the President called on mayor of Moscow Yury Luzhkov at city hall. The mayor, a colourful and sometimes controversial figure, was tipped for the presidency in 2000 before the rise in popularity of Vladimir Putin.
The meeting between the President and Mr Luzhkov lasted about 40 minutes, during which he spoke approvingly of the growing links between Irish and Russian universities. Mrs McAleese also thanked him for being instrumental in getting the St Patrick’s Day parade established in Moscow.
While business and trade links are a key element of the State visit, there will also be several cultural engagements in Moscow and St Petersburg. Musicians including Dónal Lunny, Liam O’Flynn and Paddy Glackin have travelled with the delegation to perform and celebrate the cultural links between Ireland and Russia.