Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will lead a team of Ministers on a trade mission to South Korea this week.
This mission, while a new idea, will mirror St.Patrick's trips where Ireland is promoted by various Ministers across the world.
It will run through Thursday and Friday and aims to strengthen trade, investment and education links with South Korea.
“We’ve decided as a new approach that every autumn there’ll be a trade mission led by the Taoiseach with a number of other Ministers,” he said.
“We’re going to focus on countries that we would maybe visit less often - countries outside of the European Union.”
Mr Varadkar said there are good reasons why South Korea was chosen for the trade mission.
“We’ve now 40 years of diplomatic relations with Korea,” he said.
“In addition to that, it’s the 12th biggest economy in the world and we think it’ll be in the top 10 before not too long and we want to make sure our presence is felt there.”
According to Trading Economics, Irish exports to South Korea last year were worth close to €900 million.
Main image: Simon Coveney and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. Picture by: Niall Carson/PA Archive/PA Images
