THE VALUE of food and drink exports will fall by almost €1 billion this year, chief executive of An Bord Bia Aiden Cotter has said.

He told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs, which is looking at foreign trade promotion, that exports would be “substantially down” this year.

He had been asked by committee members about the timeframe of the Bord Bia plan to increase exports from last year’s figure of €8.2 billion to €10 billion.

Mr Cotter said the expectation was to achieve this in three years but export values would be “substantially down” for a number of reasons this year. However, “they will be above €7 billion”, he told the committee.

It had heard from him and from Henry Burns, of the Irish Farmers Association, of the major difficulties caused by the weakness of sterling.

“Never has the Irish food and drink industry needed more support than now,” said Mr Cotter who added that the economic downturn combined with a massive 30 per cent depreciation in sterling and the collapse of world dairy markets was creating major challenges.

“The value of Irish food and drink exports in euro terms is set to fall substantially in the current year,” he said.

“The fact our industry must now compete with cheaper sterling-based food imports on its own domestic market exacerbates its difficulties.