IRISH FOOD EXPORTERS SPEED-DATING AT CROKE PARK - A stronger sterling is providing a backdrop to a renewed export drive for Irish food products in the UK. To help this along today Bord Bia holds its Marketplace event where over 300 international buyers will 'speed date' 150 Irish food and drinks companies, and some of the biggest retail chains will be there - including Sainsburys, Asda, Morrisons and Starbucks.
Bord Bia's chief executive Aidan Cotter says that the value of Irish food exports was €7 billion last year after a very challenging 2009. He says 2010 can see an improvement on that as the global economic recovery picks up pace and as sterling continues to grow stronger against the euro as over 40% of Irish food and drink exports go to the UK market. He says that overall growing demand across all the categories and markets should give a boost to exporters this year.
Explaining just what will happen at Croke Park today, Mr Cotter says that each Irish firm has a number of scheduled meetings - at least 18 meetings during the day. Each of the buyers will also have their own schedule and will move around in rotas of up to 25 minutes each. He says that by this evening almost 3,000 meetings will have taken place.
Mr Cotter says a very wide range of regions and markets are attending today's Marketplace event, with 12 companies from both Russia and China as well as many firms from the UK, US and Europe. He says that the Irish food and drinks industry is optimistic for the year ahead as improving demand will help all sectors.
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TRINITY HOLDS CAREER NETWORK EVENT - In the last few days we have been hearing about job losses in the construction and retail sectors. And while there is no doubt employment in these sectors has been wiped out by the recession, there are other parts of the economy where people can not get jobs in the first place. Today Trinity College Dublin is holding a career network to help its unemployed graduates. They are going to be addressed by, among others, Central Bank Governor Patrick Honohan.
Sean Gannon, a director of the careers advisory service at Trinity, says that graduates are facing an extremely competitive career environment when they leave third level education. He says today's event is designed for people who have graduated over the last number of years and who have either found themselves being made redundant or finding it really difficult to get employment. The Trinity initiative comes in two parts - a panel discussion-networking session - which is already almost booked out - and which looks at what areas of the economy might be productive in terns of jobs in the future. The second strand of the programme is open to about 40 graduates and that addresses practical issues around career planning and job search.
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MORNING BRIEFS - AIB has admitted once again overcharging some of its customers. The Financial Regulator says it is reviewing how it deals with overcharging, after it emerged AIB had charged 40,000 customers the wrong fees and interest over a number of years. The overcharging came to light in November 2008. AIB says the error was in the classification of accounts with a mix up between what were personal and business accounts.
*** On the currency markets the euro is trading at $1.3723 cents and 87.74 pence sterling.
