'Trade not politics' the aim : US chamber chief : ThePost.ie


TCH Archives > Sunday Business Post > 2004/02/01 > 'Trade not politics' the aim : US chamber chief

'Trade not politics' the aim : US chamber chief
Sunday, February 01, 2004

By Adrian Weckler

The new president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ireland has said that political pressure is "not the business" of the body.

Ciaran Ennis, also head of marketing at IBM's pan-European sales and marketing centre in Blanchardstown, Co Dublin, said that events such as the Iraq war were not linked to any lobbying by the ACCI.

"Issues of a political nature are not something for the chamber - we concentrate on trade issues," he said.

Both the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, and the Tanaiste, Mary Harney, reiterated during the Iraq war that the risk of adverse trade investment decisions by US-based companies were a prime reason for allowing US military aircraft to refuel at Shannon.

"I'm not going to comment on that one specifically," said Ennis. "But there are certainly issues which have their origins in political events and end up having an impact on commercial ones. The foreign sales corporation tax is a good example. The EU took the US to the World Trade Organisation court and won, but weren't happy with the US's response. So it drew up a list of extra tariffs on US goods and services."

However, Ennis said that access to ministers, in particular Mary Harney, remained very good.

"I expect to meet her several times over the coming year," he said. Access to the Taoiseach and his office were also good.

Ennis is the 36th honorary president of the ACCI. He said it had gone from being an "informal, social forum" to an "effective lobbying force" in the past 10 years. The association has almost 300 members from a base of 570 mediumto-large US companies with industrial activities in Ireland.

Ennis said that US companies in Ireland employ 90,000 people and account for 65 per cent of all IDA- supported employment.

He said that the association, along with sister associations in Europe, was particularly focused on European Union affairs. Much of its effectiveness, he said, lay in the ACCI's ability to lobby the Irish government on upcoming directives or regulations which would be of concern to US companies operating in Ireland.

However, Ennis said that this did not extend to decisions or rulings by the European Commission such as the one taken against Microsoft last week. The software giant, one of the biggest exporters in Ireland and a highly prized US multinational company by the IDA,was left facing defeat in a European Commission probe into the issue of bundling Internet Explorer with Microsoft Windows. The Commission's preliminary ruling was that such bundling was anti-competitive.

Ennis said that the ACCI had no position on this matter, despite Microsoft being a member.

He also said that US companies faced issues of corporate governance that Irish companies did not, but did not believe that this was a competitive advantage for indigenous competitors.

"It pays to be ahead of the game in relation to best practice on corporate governance and human resources issues," he said.

Ennis said that the Irish economy was in good shape and that a recent survey of 110 member companies showed that two thirds expected to maintain or increase jobs over the next year to 18 months.

He said that 60 per cent of those polled expected to maintain or increase investment in the same period.

"We've got to stop knocking ourselves," he said. "Of course our costs have gone up, but it's not necessarily something to be that afraid of. If revenues rise threefold, it doesn't especially matter if costs double. We need to make sure that the country attracts high value investment."

Ennis said that over-emphasis on uncompetitiveness or rising costs resulted in negative press abroad.

"The reality is that if we go on about it so much, other countries' industrial development agencies will point to our apparent difficulties when pitching for high value investment decisions."

The Culliton Report's implementation had greatly helped the country and the upcoming Enterprise Strategy Group's report would be "just as significant".

The strong euro had not impacted seriously on ACCI members. "It's not as big an issue for large US companies as it is for smaller ones as they all hedge their currencies anyway," he said.

The ACCI's main priorities for the Irish economy remain research and development, taxation policy, infrastructural development, competitiveness and operating costs.