Business

Taoiseach Brian Cowen TD said he believes Ireland can become the ‘gateway’ for Chinese investment into Europe. He made his comment yesterday in the wake of meeting a high level Chinese delegation in Government Buildings. The Chinese delegation was led by Mr Li Changchun, Member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. It’s the highest level Chinese delegation to have visited Ireland in the last six years. In 2004, China Premier Wen Jiabao visited Ireland. Cowen said Ireland has important advantages, including being the only English speaking country in the Eurozone. He said that Irish trade with China had…

Global Finance has published its 19th annual list of the world’s safest banks, and for the second consecutive year Nationwide UK is included on the list. Nationwide (UK) Ireland is due to open its first retail branch in Dublin this Autumn. It grabs the No. 47 slot. The only other UK banks to appear are HSBC and Barclays. Unsurprisingly, no Irish banks feature. The ‘World’s 50 Safest Banks’ 2010 were selected through a comparison of the long-term credit ratings and total assets of the 500 largest banks around the world. Ratings from ratings agencies Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch were used to compile the list. Commenting on the results,…

A new survey of Irish accountants conducted in the past week has shown that almost 60pc believe the minimum wage is making Irish business uncompetitive. The survey, carried out by the Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Ireland (CPA), questioned more than 500 accountants employed in accountancy practices and across a wide range of industries throughout the country, with almost 85pc of those questioned working in SMEs. According to the CPA survey, almost 20pc of those surveyed said the introduction of the minimum wage had had a significant, or very significant impact, on their business. However, one in every two respondents said their organisation would not employ more people even…

The social-networking service for professionals LinkedIn is to locate a new international headquarters in Dublin, joining Google, eBay, and Facebook among the bevy of internet giants setting up shop in the city. The headquarters, which will open on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay in April, will create jobs in sales, marketing, finance and customer service. Details of current openings can be found on the LinkedIn website . LinkedIn’s offices in Mountain View, California will continue to serve as corporate headquarters with Dublin as the center for international growth. The company says it will manage its international expansion from Dublin, working with teams in London and the Netherlands. LinkedIn now has more than 14…

Internet firm eBay has today announced the creation of 150 additional jobs at its European headquarters in Dublin. The jobs expansion at the company’s European Centre of Excellence in Blanchardstown is supported by the Irish Government with the aid of IDA Ireland. The new permanent positions have been created in customer service, personal account management and process enhancement.  People can apply to eBay directly for the positions by doing Google searches for “ebay jobs in ireland” as the website created for this purpose is currently unavailable. eBay, together with its online payment company PayPal, already employs over 1,600 people at its Blanchardstown site. Dublin helping eBay grow The Taoiseach Brian…

A new social-networking player has entered the scene to take on micro-messaging player Twitter with a service that enables macro-messages of 300 characters. The Whispurr social-networking service promises to bridge the online world with the offline world. According to Conor Devine, director of Whispurr.com , macro-messaging is a 300-character message which can be sent online by a real-time ‘whisp’ or via Whispurr’s free SMS message to a mobile-phone service. But can the service take on Twitter, which last week achieved its 10-billionth ‘tweet’ and now boasts 60 million users around the world. According to Devine, Whispurr developers work around the clock to churn out new time-saving measures to make communication as easy as possible. As a…

Ireland’s Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade, and Employment, Mary Coughlan TD, has applied to the European Commission seeking support to reskill the 1,900 Dell workers in Limerick who will lose their jobs later this year. Earlier this year, the long-anticipated closure of Dell’s factory in Limerick was confirmed after spiraling costs in the Irish economy made its future untenable. The factory is being moved to a new location in southern Poland. Dell will continue to employ 2,000 people in Ireland engaged in higher-value activities. Today, Minister Coughlan submitted an application to the European Commission seeking support from the European Globalisation Fund (EGF) for training and other supports for workers…

Steve Jobs Not Expected to Deliver Keynote at WWDC A top list of Apple executives have been asked to speak at the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), but there’s a good chance there will be no sign of Steve Jobs, as he is still on sick leave. Instead of Jobs, a top team of Apple executives led by Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice-president of worldwide product marketing, will deliver the much-anticipated keynote speech. As expected, coming to this year’s WWDC, the hand-selected executives from Apple will be focusing on covering in-depth information on what Apple deems the most advanced mobile operating system (OS) in the world, the iPhone OS 3.0. They will…