One of the three new Disruptive Reforms introduced in the Action Plan for Jobs 2014 is the “Winning Abroad” initiative to be delivered by IDA Ireland. The key objective of the initiative is to deliver an additional 10,000 jobs (6,000 direct and 4,000 indirect) in a five year period, over and above the existing targets in set out in the Action Plan.
Government has provided additional funding to IDA Ireland to enable the Agency to engage additional staff in overseas locations to capitalise on opportunities for Ireland to win additional and new forms of FDI.
The principal objectives of the programme are to:
- Broaden the geographic base from which IDA Ireland currently wins investment including enhanced levels of FDI from growth markets such as the Middle East, Turkey and South Africa;
- Develop and bring to the market a range of value propositions for new forms of FDI in areas such as marine services, oil and gas;
- Focus on more export intensive investments whilst also assisting in areas such as ICT, Life Sciences, Consumer & Financial Services and Clean Tech.
In addition to the 6,000 direct jobs that are expected to be created in FDI companies arising from these actions, IDA Ireland estimates that an additional 4,000 indirect jobs will also be created elsewhere in the economy in supply and service businesses using a conservative multiplier of 0.7 indirect jobs for every direct job created.