Economic Case

Despite the world economic turndown which causing, that lot of European countries (including Ireland), are facing decline or very small growth of their national GDP, Chinese economy is still consistently growing. Even that its current economic growth is smaller than predicted 10% from few years ago, growth in pace of 6 to 7 percent a year, still place China as the fastest growing economy in the world. That creates a lot of opportunities and encourages foreign companies to trade and invest in China.

Thanks to its economic growth and political changes, Chinese society is getting wealthier and more willing to spend. That situation is increasing their demand for goods and services not being in their scope of interest before. Current predictions are saying that Chinese customers spending have rapidly grown in the last few years and will continue to grow in the future. That is opening Chinese market to those foreign companies that can fulfil those demands and Irish companies might be in the long list of those businesses that can gain from that situation. The IEA chief executive John Whelan, stated "''Irish exports of merchandise to China grew to €2.6 in 2010, which caps a remarkable 10 year period of over 800% growth in exports to this vast and rapidly growing market, and is a clear demonstration of how competitive Irish exporters to China have become, as well as how rapidly the market has grown''. There are several fields in which Irish companies might successfully compete for a share of Chinese market and even more increase that remarkable growth.

Food export is a driving force of Irish economy in the recent years, but most of it is design for British, American and European markets. In this field China is still undiscovered country of opportunities and it's good to see that there is some progress recently made to change it. Chinese society is obsessed with food and eating together what with connection of growing prosperity increase their demand for higher quality of normal and processed food. As minister of agriculture, food and the marine Simon Coveney said after his last visit to China "This is a land of opportunity for Irish companies in the agro food business. There is a massive and growing consumer base and we have a high quality and a safe product to sell." In the last two years Ireland's food and drink exports to China are more than double what they were three years ago, and there is still a lot of place for improvement. Dairy makes up the largest component of Irish exports to China with pork being second product in line.

Other areas that creates an opportunities for Irish companies to develop business relation and increase their figures in export to China are pharmaceutical, healthcare and chemical companies as well as those that produce electronic components.

China is predicted to become the world's third-largest pharmaceutical market in the next few years, which