InterTradeIreland is marking 25 years as the business organisation responsible for directly supporting, promoting and enhancing all-island trade and collaboration. In 2024 alone, more than 12,000 businesses across the island of Ireland have benefitted from support from the organisation.
Established in 1999 under Strand Two of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, InterTradeIreland has directly assisted more than 60,000 businesses across the island, while thousands more have benefitted from its specialist information and advice. As a result, it has generated €1.95bn/£1.7bn in business development value, supported entrepreneurs to secure over €350 million in investment and led the way in growing collaborative innovation, all- island clustering and cross-border trade from €2 billion to €12 billion.
InterTradeIreland is calling for more businesses to take advantage of the cross-border opportunity as a route to growth. Its research shows that the vast majority of first-time exporters in the cross-border market go on to export off the island, enjoying higher levels of growth and profitability.
Key to InterTradeIreland’s success, is its services along the key pillars of trade, innovation, entrepreneurship and funding for growth, all with a cross-border element to take advantage of the best expertise and bigger market that working across the island offers.
At a macro level, InterTradeIreland is also creating and supporting vital partnerships across the island in the areas of advanced manufacturing, the bioeconomy, fintech and life sciences.
With a proven track record, InterTradeIreland has clear plans for the future. They include:
- Growing the sales of businesses exporting cross-border and the number of first-time exporters
- Growing all-island innovation partnerships and connections in high value sectors to scale innovation, productivity and to drive adaptation of new technologies.
- Accelerating all-island entrepreneurship including the number of women entrepreneurs
InterTradeIreland plays a unique role in identifying opportunities for North-South collaboration that can accelerate growth in both economies, as well as connecting business across the island to export cross-border, collaborate, innovate and attract investment.
With cross-border trade now at an all-time high, there has never been a better time for businesses to take advantage of the all-island economy and with our support, there is scope for further growth.
Across the island there are many shared policy priorities and economic opportunities that can be best addressed by working with our partners. We were established to work across the island, and so facilitating and delivering collaboration is in our DNA.
We would like to acknowledge our partners and stakeholders and look forward to working with them over the next 25 years to continue to increase all-island economic cooperation and growth.
Margaret Hearty, InterTradeIreland Chief Executive
