Enterprise Ireland chief executive Frank Ryan is declaring the recession over. Exports at companies backed by the state agency are rising again after plunging 10% last year. If that continues, then job creation will resume this year and take off in 2011. It may not come soon enough for the 400,000-plus unemployed but it is, at least, a start, Ryan says.

"Things are on the up, and faster than we predicted they might be. We are officially putting an end to our stabilisation period where we have been for the past 18 months. We got significant funds from government to stabilise a lot of viable but vulnerable companies. That work is largely done now. In the first four months of the year we have seen a significant rise in exports. Things are rapidly on the up," he says in a sunlit conference room beside his open plan office in Enterprise Ireland's headquarters in North Dublin. "Exports mean jobs. Our feeling now is that we are much more confident that we are entering a strong period of growth."

Although speaking before last Tuesday's job losses at Pfizer, as a 32-year veteran of development agencies, including a long stint in the IDA in the 1980s, Ryan has reason to be optimistic. "We've come through [this recession] well," he says, adding that the agency will support the creation of 8,000-10,000 new jobs this year.

"In 2003 exports by indigenous companies reached €9.6bn. From 2003 to 2008 they went from €9.6bn to €14.3bn and in 2009 we are down 10% from that figure. But we are still above the €13bn mark. What surprised me about this recession was I thought it would hit us harder. If you have come through the worst recession since the 1930s and you have only lost €1.2bn in exports then you must have some resilient companies. We've had very few closures. Now we've had significant downsizing, but our companies have come through this. We got them through this difficult period."

Driving export growth will be a rebound in the main markets for Irish goods and services – the UK, US and Germany – and also growing economies targeted by the agency in Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Brazil.

"The opportunity for us is across five or six sectors. There is an opportunity in mobile telecoms, medical devices, life sciences, some engineering products, financial software, security software."

The optimism expressed by Ryan, chief executive of the agency since 2003 after taking over from Dan Flinter, comes after an 18-month period where the agency has found itself having to prop up many companies, providing them with additional funds to keep them going rather than expand. Not helping was the weakness of the pound affecting exports to our biggest trading partner.

"Anything over 80p and it is a big factor. It has moved in the right direction. We have a policy of trying to move companies out of the sterling area."

Another challenge for Enterprise Ireland is rebuilding the shattered construction sector – not by putting up more houses and apartments in Ireland but by targeting foreign markets. Irish building companies have won contracts worth £200m (€233m) to build facilities for the London Olympics in 2012 and Ryan sees no reason why Irish companies should let their skills go to waste.

"Our strategy is to have an international construction sector that has a base in Ireland not a construction sector that is resident in Ireland."

Should that have been a goal for the agency during the boom years? "It is always hard for companies to walk away from low-hanging fruit and there was a lot of it. If you can build the Intel facility in Leixlip or the Aviva stadium you can build anything. Our mission is to have those companies increasingly successful in construction overseas. Unfortunately, during the boom, too many over-focused on the domestic market. Now they have to start from scratch and it will take two or three years to prove their credentials. We are putting on a special trade mission to Brazil in the second half of the year, bringing these companies down to Rio to introduce them to the Brazilian Olympic development people. We weren't in that business two years ago." Rio will host the Olympic Games in 2016.

The agency has also found itself playing the role of banker to its companies, providing more than 200 of them with finance last year. Instead of criticising the banks for curtailing lending, Ryan says Enterprise Ireland is ready to work with them to ensure they know about the sectors they are lending to.

"We've seconded colleagues into the main banks. We have delivered detailed briefings to the main banks in areas of software, medical devices, international construction services, life sciences... all of those areas. The banks don't have that knowledge," he said.

However, Ryan rejects the suggestion that having to go to those lengths to secure support for small and medium business is a shocking indictment of the quality of the executives at the big Irish banks.

"In the past their business has brought them to the property areas rather than enterprise. The sectors that are growing are in those more technically advanced areas. They [the banks] are developing the confidence to lend on the basis of cashflow rather than asset-based lending. They have been very open to listen to solid business cases. They have extremely good portfolio managers but the sectors the banks have been strong in are property, retail and agriculture. In areas of software or mobile communications or life sciences... they are areas they haven't been into."

He also says Ireland's reputation hasn't been helped by the various scandals that have emerged at the country's banks.

"It has affected our international reputation and it hasn't done us any good. We have to trade with integrity. That is the approach we have always taken in Enterprise Ireland. I can't put my hand up and point to any contract that was lost because of it, but things weren't helped."

As a backer of Sean Quinn's empire through grants, Enterprise Ireland has also been involved in discussions to protect jobs at the insurance, packaging and plastics side of the business. He believes that the Quinn Group companies will survive the current crisis.

"Our view hasn't changed since the start. We regard the business model in insurance, plastics and packaging as viable. Plastics and packaging continue to grow and my own personal view is that the insurance operation will grow again. The business model is good. It is not dissimilar from a Ryanair business model."

So does he believe that Sean Quinn was right to step down as chairman of the group?

"It was a personal decision and it must have been a traumatic decision to make. I am sure he took it after a lot of consideration [and] that his decision was in the best interest of the company. And I would welcome it as the right decision."

Given the fragility of the markets in the last couple of weeks, does he have any doubts that the economy is recovering?

"Irish companies will bounce back from this really fast. Ireland's best days lie ahead and not behind. We now have an economy that is driven both by indigenous companies and by foreign direct investment. In the past we had an economy driven by foreign direct investment. That's not a good long-term position as a developed economy. We will look more like a Germany, Japan and United States. We are becoming known for the strength of our own products and services. That is the maturity of the nation."

Curriculum Vitae

Frank Ryan

Position: Chief Executive Enterprise Ireland

Education: TCD; University of Pennsylvania.

Family: Married, two children