Combilift, the Irish manufacturer of multi-directional forklifts based in Monaghan has signed a contract with Kingfisher, Europe’s largest home improvement retailer worth an additional €1m to deliver 50 Aisle-Master forklifts to the company during 2017. The contract signing was witnessed by Leo Varadkar Minister for Social Protection and Geraldine Nason-Byrne, Ireland’s Ambassador to France during an Enterprise Ireland trade visit to France. A further six Enterprise Ireland clients – Novareus, Ecowash, Ding, Vigitrust, Xintec and Gaelectric – were set to sign contracts with French partners on the visit. One of these partnerships is notable because it is between an Irish start-up Novareus which provides an infectious defence system for indoor facilities and French company Azelies which is also a start-up company. The contract will see Novareus equipment deployed in French healthcare facilities in the coming year. Dublin based waterless car-wash company Ecowash will sign a contract with Transpoco, a leading provider of fleet management solutions and Ding, the world’s largest mobile top-up network will sign a contract with Sigue France, a leading global money transfer company. Vigitrust will sign a contract with MONEXT which is a major player in the e-payment market in France and Xintec, the Dublin based provider of fraud management and revenue assurance solutions to the telecommunications industry will sign a contract worth €150k with Araxxe which is headquartered in Lyon. Irish renewable energy group Gaelectric will sign a Memorandum of Understanding with French offshore wind company Ideol to develop floating offshore wind energy projects in Irish waters. Leo McAdams, Enterprise Ireland’s Director of International Sales and Partnering said; “This trade visit is an important initiative towards achieving Enterprise Ireland’s strategic goal of increasing indigenous Irish exports to France which were valued at €0.91 billion in 2015. Post Brexit, France is a critically important market and Enterprise Ireland continues to support Irish companies with global ambition to exploit business development opportunities in the French market to sustain export growth in 2017”.