Minister Fitzgerald’s visit to Korea

Minister Fitzgerald visited Korea in celebration of St. Partick’s day. Highlights included her laying of a wreath at the Irish Memorial at the War Memorial of Korea with the Minister for Patriots and Veterans Affairs, Park Sungchoon; and the National Day Reception, hosted by the Ambassador which focused on the promotion of Irish food.

Bord Bia’s Asia Pacific Directors were also in Seoul actively engaging with local companies with the hope of increasing exports to Korea of Irish products such as Irish Mackerel and Flahavan’s through Korea’s major department stores Lotte Mart and Hyundai. As part of her trip Minister Fitzgerald availed of the opportunity to visit Hyundai Department Store to help with the official launch of ‘Flahavan’s Irish porridge in Korea. Minister Fitzgerald also gave a speech on ‘Women, work and child well being’ to students at Ewha University.

On the economic front she had a busy programme engaging with Enterprise Ireland and IDA clients as well as promoting Irish food products recently launched on the Korean market.

With Enterprise Ireland the Minister met with a group of Korea representatives of 11 EI clients companies from the key export sectors (e.g. Engineering, Food Solutions, ITS), and emerging (ICT Electronics, Education) and rapidly growing sectors (Life Sciences) who shared their views on the opportunities for Irish exports in Korea and how to grow trade between the two countries.

With the IDA, Minister Fitzgerald called on the Korea Development Bank, which has been operating in Ireland since 1997 and met executive director Kyung Jin Min. More ICT/Contents companies from Korea are looking for chances to collaborate with Irish companies, and IDA Ireland in Korea has been working hard to make those connections come to fruition.