IDA Ireland chief Sean Dorgan has said manufacturing industries will continue to be the backbone of the Irish economy well into the future.
He told the Institute of Certified Public Accountants' AGM that the profile of the type of investment the IDA was seeking to attract had changed. But he said it would be wrong to interpret that as meaning Ireland was working to be a services based economy.
Mr Dorgan said two-thirds of new investments negotiated by the authority last year were in the manufacturing sector.
He said the IDA was confident Ireland would continue to win manufacturing investment, but this would be a new type of project, more integrated into other areas such as R&D and customer and technical support.
