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Food Industry

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 7 December 2021

Tuesday, 7 December 2021

Questions (693)

Bernard Durkan

Question:

693. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the extent to which he and his Department continue to promote Irish food products abroad to the maximum possible extent; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [60486/21]

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Written answers

I am firm in my support of the ambition of the Irish agrifood sector to grow the value of exports to international markets. The promotion of Ireland's high-quality, safe, nutritious and sustainably produced food is a core objective of mine, my Department and of the relevant Government Agencies, particularly Bord Bia.

Encouragingly, despite an extremely challenging 2020 and 2021 as a result of Brexit and COVID-19 issues, Irish agrifood export performance has been very resilient, totalling €14.3 billion in 2020 and showing signs of further growth in 2021.

Bord Bia has received significant extra funding from my Department in recent years in order to support its extensive marketing and promotional activities. This funding is also used to support companies that are establishing and expanding their presence in international markets.

My Department has a network of agriculture attaches assigned to Irish Embassies throughout the world. Since 2019, we have invested in new posts in Seoul, Mexico City, Tokyo and Berlin. This ensures that the Department's technical, policy and strategic expertise is in place to resolve regulatory, trade and political issues which may arise in these markets.

Another component of our strategy to develop and diversify markets is Ministerial Trade Missions. Despite the challenges presented by COVID-19, Minister of State Martin Heydon and I have led a number of virtual trade missions and key customer engagements in 2021.

These were focused on Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, China, Singapore and West Africa, as well as our traditional markets in the EU, UK and US. In 2022, provided the public health situation allows, we have an extensive schedule of trade missions planned in a number of the key target growth markets for Irish food exports.

My Department also continues to work on the opportunities provided by recent EU Free Trade Agreements with third countries, and to press at Government-to-Government level for the removal of technical market access barriers across a range of third country markets.

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