AN Bord Trachtala/the Irish Trade Board (ABT) has launched a new strategy programme to more than double the value of exports by the services sector to £1.6 billion over the next four years.

The Minister for Tourism and Trade, Mr Kenny, who launched the scheme at a reception in Dublin yesterday, said ABT planned to spend £3 million next year supporting services companies in overseas markets. This investment is expected to be repeated in each of the four years of the scheme. The trade board has also doubled its services support team.

"I'm fairly confident the programme will produce sufficient results to encourage the board to increase the funding," said Mr Aidan Stack, ABT's international services manager.

Representatives of a number of services companies who were present at the launch called on Mr Kenny to push for the reduction of corporation tax on all internationally traded services to 10 per cent.

The Minister replied that, if individual companies wanted to make their case to him, he would be "very happy to take that to Government".

More than 750,000 people work in services companies in the Republic, according to a new ABT report published to coincide with the launch of the drive. In comparison, less than 500,000 people work in agriculture and industry combined.

Mr Kenny said that, according to latest estimates, about 40,000 jobs were created in services last year compared to 12,000 new jobs in industry. Agricultural employment had decreased by 1,000.

A key plank of the programme was the need to increase the number of exporting services companies from 650 to 800. But, while there were 650 exporters in the services sector, most export earnings were from a very small number of companies.

Almost one third of the £635 million worth of services exported currently was accounted for by the three largest companies while the top eight firms accounted for more than 44 per cent of exports.

The new strategy would also give increased emphasis to building markets in continental Europe and the United States.

The programme would focus on six specific areas of the highly diverse services sector, but the scheme was not limited to those areas and would be "highly flexible", according to Mr Stack. The six areas are software, consultancy and technical co operation, management and business services, media, construction, and engineering, and environmental services.