Irish trade and technology agency Enterprise Ireland has visited SA to explore opportunities across a wide range of business sectors.
Joe Costello, Ireland's minister of trade and development, who is in the country to strengthen trade relations between SA and Ireland, as well as to boost career prospects for South Africans, led the visit.
This follows a similar visit last year by an Enterprise Ireland trade mission to SA, with a primary focus on seeking opportunities and developing the local telecoms, e-learning and ICT sectors.
This year, 37 Irish companies, led by Costello, came on a trade mission to advance more enterprise exploits to boost economic growth and job creation in the country.
According to the agency, participants in the delegation were drawn from a wide range of other sectors, including consumer products and services.
"Working in conjunction with embassies and the government, we are here with over 35 international companies to engage in memorandums of operations, and so far we've had about five meetings with 100 companies," Costello explains.
During the visit, Costello unveiled a EUR3 million certification deal between locally-based Vega School of Brand Leadership with Ireland's Digital Marketing Institute.
The school will offer the Digital Marketing Institute's Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing as part of its programme in 2013 and over 3 000 students will undergo digital marketing training at the school through this partnership. However, the diploma will only be offered at four of its campuses - Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban.
"We're looking at bringing Ireland's economical and intellectual property to the education sector, as it is the basis of our economy. As Ireland is rated among the largest software exporters, we're hoping to engage institutions in skills development by bringing content from Ireland and localising it," explains Costello.
Enterprise Ireland also partnered with other South African training companies, including Blue Magnet Training, Brandschool and Digital Academy South Africa, to deliver the same diploma programme locally.
The agency believes this visit underlines the key strategic importance of the South African market for Irish companies seeking to increase trade with the region and recognises SA as the economic hub and regional economic powerhouse and gateway into sub-Saharan Africa.
Enterprise Ireland indicated that the South African market, in the various sectors the mission will engage, would generate revenues of EUR3 million by 2015.
Ian Dodson, president and CEO of the Digital Marketing Institute, stated that Enterprise Ireland has developed a world-class industry programme that will be rolled out through a partner network.
Additional e-learning partnerships with other organisations on the trade mission have been established with higher learning institutions, including the University of Johannesburg and other organisations, in agreement with the Department of Education's regulations.
The trade mission is expected to travel to Cape Town for the next two days to continue negotiations.
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