The new member states of Europe are ready and open for business, a major Chamber conference in Dublin was told.

Speaking at the "No Frontiers" conference in Dublin on 30 April, which included business representatives from the ten EU Accession Countries, the three Candidate countries as well as a large Irish business audience, Chamber President David Pierce said that EU enlargement will give Irish business access to a new market of 130 million consumers.

"A key and critical part of this conference is to allow for personal introductions to be made. We know that Irish people and the countries from the new Europe depend very much on personal relationships in doing business. Once those initial connections are made, the ongoing communications can be carried out through phone, email, internet and the latest range of communications technologies. That is what we call the "high tech - high touch" principle."

Elsewhere, Jack Golden, human resources director of CRH, which has operations in the construction sector throughout central Europe, said that the burden of complying with EU regulations could actually slow the development of the economies of the Accession States. Some of the countries still had strong bureaucracies, and there was a danger of overregulation. One result of this was that it was difficult for foreign firms to gain approval for land acquisition. There was also occasional confusion in the levying of corporation tax, while social welfare costs tended to be high compared to Ireland. However, once all these difficulties were surmounted, the new countries would be a great place to do business.

Jim Wylie of Osborne Recruitment said that there was now full access to the Irish labour market for workers from the new countries. With Ireland's economy still continuing to grow, there were significant opportunities for skilled people to take up jobs in Ireland without the need for work permits.

The conference was co-hosted with the EU Taiex office in Brussels and sponsored by A & L Goodbody. Other speakers included EU Commissioner David Byrne, Peter Brennan of A&L Goodbody Consulting, Paul Skehan of Eurochambres and Hakan Karaalioglu, MD of Gama Construction.