KITT WELCOMES IRELAND'S "IMPRESSIVE" TRADE PERFORMANCE

Minister for Trade, Tom Kitt T.D., today (Thursday 21st September, 2000) welcomed the continuing strength of Ireland’s export performance as reflected in the January to June 2000 trade figures released today by the CSO. The figures show the value of merchandise exports for the period January to June 2000 at £30.9 billion, an increase of 26% over the same period in 1999. The trade surplus for January to June 2000 totalled nearly £10.3 billion, an increase of 28% over the same period last year.

Commenting on these latest figures Minister Kitt said "The fact that the value of exports for the first half of 2000 exceeded the value of exports for the full year of 1996 underlines how much progress we have achieved as a global trading nation over a very short period of time".

The rate of export growth has increased significantly from 12% to 26% compared with the first half of 1999. However, it is somewhat slower than the 31% export growth recorded for the first half of 1998. The European Union accounted for 60.5% of Ireland’s exports, the Eurozone for 36% and the United States for 18.7%.

Exports for the month of June reached a new monthly record level of £6.2 billion - "the first time that exports for a calendar month exceeded £6 billion", commented the Minister. The preliminary figures for July 2000 show exports totalling almost £5.1 billion.

Exports to the United States increased by 60% over the same period in 1999 to almost £5.8 billion. The US overtook Germany as Ireland’s second largest export market last year and for the month of June overtook the UK as Ireland’s largest export market. Exports to the US for the month of June totalled nearly £1.4 billion - £230 million higher than exports to the UK - and amounting to 22% of exports for that month. The UK, however, remains our largest trading partner for the first half of 2000.

There were large increases in exports to the Netherlands, France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom. The export sectors showing the strongest growth were organic chemicals (+49%) electrical machinery (+39%) and computer equipment (+26%).

Minister Kitt commented: "A major factor in Ireland’s economic performance has been outstanding levels of export growth. In the six year period from the 1994 to 1999 according to the OECD Irish merchandise exports grew at an annual average real growth rate of 15.9%, more than double the OECD, EU and Euro-area averages, and the third highest overall in the 29 member OECD. Irish export growth rates outpaced world trade growth in the same period by a factor of three.

"Over the past decade, Ireland has emerged as one of the most vibrant economies in the world and today’s trade figures are another impressive demonstration of the rate of progress continuing to be made by Irish based industry in the global trading marketplace of the 21st century," concluded Minister Kitt.