Kenny tells exporters' to prepare for EMU

EXPORTERS must start to prepare for European Monetary Union now, the Minister for Tourism and Trade, Mr Kenny, said yesterday. He told delegates to the annual conference of the Irish Exporters' Association in the Irish Management Institute, that exporters must consider the actual day to day implications of EMU for their businesses.

"It is up to each individual exporter to take responsibility for their company's transition through EMU," Mr Kenny said. "EMU has no bail out clause. We will have to deal with our own troubles, if troubles we have, ourselves."

Firms and sectors would face increasing competition regardless of EMU, and Britain was accounting for a declining share of overall exports regardless of EMU, the Minister said. Sterling could and would fluctuate regardless of EMU.

"What we need to understand as best as we can is how EMU will affect our ability to respond to those challenges. There may be a natural order of change here, which EMU did not create, but could accelerate." The Minister said that the main conclusion of a recent ESRI report was that EMU would be good for Ireland. The net benefit of lower interest rates, coupled with savings on currency costs, should be more than enough to offset competitiveness uncertainties, he said.