Minister Kelleher ‘encouraged’ as new figures show exports remain stable

The Minister for Trade and Commerce, Billy Kelleher TD, has described as ‘encouraging’ new figures showing that our exports are remaining stable while the value of imports has increased.

Minister Kelleher was commenting on the latest merchandise trade statistics published by the Central Statistics Office.

The preliminary seasonally adjusted figures for February 2010 show that, relative to January 2010, our exports remained stable at just under €7 billion while the value of imports increased by 3pc to just over €3.5 billion.

The figures also show a positive trend in our exports from December 2009.

Minister Kelleher said: ‘The figures are encouraging and build on the strengthening performance of our exports since last December.

‘Since then, there has been a steady increase in our exports, rising by 16pc from just over €6 billion to €6.99 billion - a remarkable achievement in these difficult economic times.

‘Our imports during that time also rose, reflecting increased activity in the economy.

‘Our trade surplus for the first two months of this year was almost €7 billion,’ said Minister Kelleher.

He said that while the figures were encouraging we must be mindful of the challenges we face.

‘On an unadjusted basis, the January figures for this when compared with those of January 2009 show that there was an overall decrease of 3pc in our exports which reflected a fall in our exports of computer equipment due to the decision by Dell to relocate abroad,’ said Minister Kelleher.

Minister Kelleher pointed out that our medical and pharmaceutical exports rose by 18pc.

Our exports to the US and China also showed healthy increases.

'These trends show the resilience of Irish exporters in difficult times and they reinforce the Government’s work in promoting an export-led recovery.

‘Net exports are a significant contributor to gross domestic product growth and our continued strong export performance is a key factor in contributing to our economic recovery,’ said Minister Kelleher.

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