Ireland will be seeking to win back valuable Middle Eastern agricultural markets which were lost because of the BSE crisis, when a high-level trade delegation led by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern visits the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia early next month.
Minister for Agriculture and Food Mary Coughlan said she would be travelling with the Taoiseach and would be hoping the visit will reopen the trade in dairy and beef products lost because of BSE.
Ireland had a very lucrative market in butter with the region up until the link between BSE and vCJD was established by the British authorities and led to a ban on imports of Irish beef and dairy products.
Ms Coughlan told the Irish Cattle and Sheepfarmers Association that this was only one of the regions being targeted by the Government in a drive to recover important beef and dairy markets.
Ms Coughlan stressed the importance of the beef market to the Irish economy, and said that last year exports were valued at almost €1.4 billion, or nearly one-fifth of total agrifood exports. She said that, at EU level, the European Commission had indicated there would be a doubling of the beef deficit over the next seven years.
She said this was very good news for farmers, and cattle slaughterings had continued to increase this year with an additional 100,000 cattle being processed, a rise of 7 per cent on last year.
She added that while the premium EU markets were significant, they represented half of our total exports. For that reason, the trade delegation to Saudi was of great importance, as was the Russian market for beef which had picked up again.