I’m delighted to have been invited to the official opening of Amazon’s new offices here at Burlington Plaza, and to join you in celebrating 10 years in Ireland by welcoming the 300 new jobs being created in Dublin.
This has been an excellent week for Ireland’s digital sector and this announcement today by a global leader reinforces Ireland’s reputation as the internet capital of Europe.
On Tuesday I rang the Nasdaq bell at the Dublin Web Summit and told the global audience that Ireland was one of the most exciting places in the world for creating the businesses of tomorrow.
Amazon is the embodiment of the business of tomorrow as it has transformed the sales business forever. I understand 2.5 million third party vendors buy, sell and deliver product and services through the Amazon platform.
Connecting these vendors with 270 million paying customers all over the world is a fantastic opportunity for those that embrace it.
Amazon has established a strong relationship with Ireland over the past ten years and has steadily built up its employment levels here. I would like to thank you for your confidence in Ireland and to assure you it is not misplaced.
The company already has significant operations here in Dublin and in Cork. The new offices that we are officially opening today are a welcome statement of your commitment to Ireland. It sends a powerful message about Ireland’s ability to meet your needs.
There is a great vibrancy around the city this week with so much going on linked to the Dublin Web Summit. I understand that Werner (Vogels) was a keynote speaker at the event.
Seeing all these great minds and enterprises mix and flourish places Dublin as a global hot-spot for the digital economy.
The Government’s job is to continue its recovery plan and to guide the economy back to full employment by improving our attractiveness as a place for investment and jobs.
Our efforts are bearing fruit. International rankings show that we are rated number one for the quality of the FDI that we attract. We jumped four places in the World Bank’s score for the ease of doing business, the largest improvement in the rankings of all EU or OECD countries.
There is no doubt that Ireland is now among the “Internet Capitals” of the world. In addition to Amazon, we have Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, AOL, and eBay located here, all “Born of the Internet” companies which have substantial operations in Ireland.
Another major part of our recovery plan is the continued vigilance in managing our national finances. We are fully committed to reducing our deficit to below 3% of GDP next year and to eliminate it altogether by 2018.
Government is targeting a deficit of 2.7% of GDP in 2015 - below the 2.9% ceiling under the EU Stability and Growth Pact – to act as a buffer to allow for any unexpected developments.
Government is also forecasting that our gross debt ratio will drop below 100% of GDP in 2018, also ahead of the reduction required by the EU Stability and Growth Pact.
While these targets will be helped by being the fastest growing economy in Europe we have to finish out our reform programme. We have to ensure that the economy we are rebuilding is stable and acts as a catalyst for even more jobs and investment.
But for this morning I am delighted to join you in celebration of this great success story. You know already that we are open to new opportunities for exciting companies like Amazon and that we are continuously working to make Ireland the best small country in the world for business.
I want to take this opportunity to wish you well in your new offices and I look forward to a continuing successful partnership.