Dear Member, 

Welcome to the first edition of the 2020 SFA e-zine. 

We are just two weeks away from Business Connect 2020 taking place in Aviva Stadium on 6 February. Be sure to book seats for yourself and your colleagues while we still have some tickets left!

Yesterday we launched our Small Business Manifesto for General Election 2020, outlining small businesses priorities and ensuring the voice of entrepreneurs and our small business owners is heard during and after the election.  

As we face into a new decade, we bring you the most significant trends from our Small Business Sentiment Survey and a webinar on the economic outlook for 2020.  We also provide an update on our recent press coverage. 

Last week, Deloitte published its predictions for the technology, media and telecommunications sector in 2020 - check out the full article here.  

There have been new changes to the Employment Permit for non-EEA employees to address immediate labour shortages in sectors such as hospitality, construction, health and road haulage. 

Finally, we advise on how to prepare your business to comply with exporting controls. 

As always, we’d love to hear from you about any queries you may have, issues you wish to have raised with Government or other stakeholders and your ideas on how we can improve the business

environment for us all. Please contact me on tel: 01 605 1602 or e-mail: sven@sfa.ie or tweet: @SFA_Irl or visit: www.sfa.ie.

Kind regards, 

Sven Spollen-Behrens

SFA Director