Martin calls for China to accept Irish beef

Ireland has pressed China to reopen its market for Irish beef products, the Taoiseach has said.

Micheal Martin has continued his itinerary in China with engagements on transport links and educational connections.

Mr Martin met Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday as part of the first visit to China by a taoiseach since 2012.

On Tuesday morning, he met with Zhao Leji, chairman of China’s National People’s Congress and was also scheduled to meet Chinese premier Li Qiang.

Speaking to reporters, Mr Martin said: “On the bilateral front, we again pressed for the reopening of the market to beef products and we raised issues pertaining to the position of tariffs on dairy products.

“We had a good discussion in terms of the broader trading environment and, in addition to that, strengthening people-to-people relationships in terms of education and cultural and artistic connections between our two countries.”

Mr Martin said China’s educational officials are “particularly pleased that Chinese is now on the Leaving Certificate”.

“We had a very important presentation from the third-level institutions between Ireland and China – and its an area that has grown really strongly over the last number of years.

“We now have 13 joint colleges and about 110 joint programmes and these involve the lecturing to students here in China by Irish colleges and it’s quite beneficial both to Irish colleges and to Chinese students and the Chinese colleges as well.

“And that’s apart from the normal toing-and-froing of students coming to study in Ireland and Irish students coming to study as part of their undergraduate or postgraduate programmes in China.

Mr Martin also said he had met with Hainan Airlines to “enhance connectivity”, with the operator already offering four direct flights per week each way.

“A direct flight from Dublin to Beijing is hugely important in terms of the people-to-people engagement, in terms of Chinese companies that are located in Ireland now and equally the Irish companies doing business in China.”

China is Ireland’s largest trading partner in Asia and its fifth largest trading partner globally.