The recent four-day trade and investment mission to Singapore and Malaysia secured contracts worth €25 million and significant new business partnerships across the financial services, ICT and education sectors. These announcements underline the growing opportunities for Irish companies in the developing ASEAN region (Association of South East Asian nations).

The mission of 42 Irish companies was organised by Enterprise Ireland in close cooperation with IDA Ireland, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Embassies of Ireland in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.

While in Singapore, Minister Bruton also led the first ever joint Irish, UK and Northern Ireland trade mission, along with UK Transport Minister Stephen Hammond and Northern Ireland Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster.

Among the announcements made during the mission were:
• Tango Telecom (Limerick) announced a major expansion deal with RobiAxiata, one of the three largest mobile operators in Bangladesh.
• cut-e, a world leader in the design and implementation of innovative online tests and questionnaires for recruitment, selection and development, signed a deal to provide online psychometric assessments to Morgan Advanced Materials in Asia.
• ICDL Asia, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ECDL Foundation, announced they have entered into an agreement with RVi Group Singapore to make ICDL available throughout Myanmar.
• Quest Computing (Dublin) announced that its ASEAN subsidiary, AIMS Software, is partnering with Tech Mahindra to provide joint Sales and Marketing focus in addition to local System Integration delivery capability.
• Atlantic Projects Company signed an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with Malaysian company Serba Dinamik Group.

Julie Sinnamon, CEO of Enterprise Ireland, who accompanied Minister Bruton on the mission, commented:
“ASEAN offers serious opportunities for Ireland. Irish companies and education institutions are winning more and more business in the region matched by an increasing interest among ASEAN companies in Ireland as a location for setting up new operations to target the European market. Trade missions are a key part of Enterprise Ireland’s strategy to grow Irish export sales by opening doors, making high-level introductions and helping our client companies to exploit the opportunities that exist in global markets.”