INTERNATIONAL
Cork Looks East to Deepen Agrifood and Business Ties A recent two-day strategic dialogue hosted in Cork by Asia Matters brought together leaders from across government, business, and diplomacy to explore how Ireland, and Cork in particular, can strengthen agrifood and trade relationships with Asia. The event opened at Teagasc Moorepark with a roundtable on the future of food and dairy, focusing on innovation in specialised nutrition, sustainability, and production. A visit to Midleton Distillery followed, showcasing Ireland’s premium drinks industry and global export potential.
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Day two featured a packed agenda of panels and keynotes addressing the strategic importance of Asia for Ireland’s agrifood sector. Topics included food security, scalable AgTech innovation, and unlocking trade through international cooperation. Highlights included contributions from the Ambassadors of China and Indonesia, JETRO, James O’Connor TD, and others. Notably, the value of Ireland’s food, drink, and horticulture exports rose by 5% last year, reaching a record €17 billion. This is strong a testament to the sector’s growing global relevance.
A fireside chat on food tourism explored Cork’s ambition to become a world gastronomic capital by 2030, while the closing panel spotlighted Irish whiskey as a fast-growing export to Asia, with voices from HYDE Irish Whiskey, Skellig Six18, West Cork Distillers and more. Cork Chamber is proud to partner on this event, which underscores Cork’s expanding role in global trade. It also brings focus to the importance of healthy trade agreements and that growing new markets is essential to offering certainty to producers.