Chinese investors flock to Ireland in the wake of UK's vote to leave EU

Ireland says it has seen a fivefold increase in the number of Chinese delegations visiting the country seeking potential business opportunities in the wake of the UK's departure from the European Union.

International markets are eyeing Ireland for potential business opportunities since last year's Brexit vote.

"We've seen a lot of inbound activity," said Dublin Chamber chief executive Mary Rose Burke.

She said there have been 10 delegations from China this year so far, compared with just two in the same period in 2016.

The most recent involved representatives from food, technology, finance and aircraft leasing sectors.

In May a delegation of Chinese fund managers was in Dublin for an event hosted by Irish Funds, the trade body for the industry, which also launched a guide to the Irish fund management industry for Chinese investors.

"For the first time in the history of our conference, we had a delegation coming from the industry in China," Pat Lardner, chief executive of Irish Funds, told the Irish Times.

He said China represented a potential source of new business for the industry, which already employs 15,000 people.

Dublin Chamber said as well as China, it has received interest from the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, the Western Balkans and Belgium.

"I think everybody is looking to the future, with the change, where potential new markets are," Burke said. "Places like Singapore would be appearing to take more of an interest in Ireland and I would interpret that as being on the back of Brexit. People are looking at what does their European strategy mean in the event of Brexit."

Dublin Chamber, which represents over 1,300 companies across the four local authority areas, this week published the result of a survey which found almost one in four Irish companies believe that Brexit will have a positive impact on their business, up from one in seven at the same point last year.

The survey, carried out in the first two weeks of August and involving 359 companies, found that the number of firms that believe that Brexit will hit them negatively fell slightly from 50 percent to 46 percent.