Irish export's are seeing strong growth in North American, China and the Middle East. The Government also intends to organise visits to African countries to forge new relationships to take advantage of emerging markets on the continent.

Speaking to The Pat Kenny Show, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Simon Coveney discussed Ireland's latest export figures for food and drink - they increase by four percent in 2014, and are now valued at €10.5bn.

He welcomed the latest figures: "We've had five great years for agri-food exports, remember we've seen a 45 percent increase in the value of food and drink exports out of Ireland. When you look at other products it's a five percent increase - so we're talking about agri-food nearly seeing 10 times the growth of other products that are being produced and exported out of Ireland."

The UK is still Ireland's primary market - with 40 percent of our food and drink exports going to our closest neighbour. 31 percent is sold to the rest of the EU - while 29 percent goes to other markets.

The value of food and drink exports to China increased by nearly 40 percent in 2014 - coming in at €520m. Mr Coveney added that he hopes that Irish beef producers will start to export to China in 2015.

In 2014 the strongest performing sectors were dairy products and ingredients - they rose by three percent to exceed €3bn for the first time. Dairy performed well in China - the country is now our second largest export market for diary products.

Mr Coveney says that Irish producers can benefit as the EU lifts dairy quotas in 2015: "We're predicting in the next five years we'll see 50 percent growth in terms of the volume of milk that we produce in Irish farms."

He continues: "We are then going to significantly add value to it in Ireland before we export it - turning it into infant formula, turning it into sports nutrition products, yogurts, cheese, butters - and then selling it all over the world."

He also added that new beef exports to the US will also create fresh opportunities for food exporters.

A survey carried out by Board Bia found that Irish exporters are optimistic about the new year - 52 percent of the food and drink exporters believe that their exports will grow in 2015, while 42 percent believe that they will remain at their current levels.