‘Latest trade figures are impressive’ - Minister Kelleher

The Minister for Trade and Commerce, Mr. Billy Kelleher, T.D., today [Friday] described as ‘encouraging’ the latest merchandise trade figures published by the Central Statistics Office.

The preliminary seasonally adjusted figures for May 2010 show that exports increased by 8%, compared to May 2009, while imports decreased by 11%.

Minister Kelleher said ‘These figures are very encouraging, and show a reverse of the negative trend for the earlier part of the year.

‘The performance is a remarkable achievement given the current economic climate

and clearly reflect the growing signs in our economic recovery.

‘This strong performance has resulted in an increase in the monthly trade surplus to €4.062 billion (up 41% from €2.886 billion in April 2010).

‘The turnaround in our merchandise trade performance, builds on the recently announced details of our services exports for the first quarter of 2010, which showed a very healthy 7% increase over the same period for 2009.

‘The data shows the resilience of Irish exporters in difficult times and represents a strong vindication of the Government’s work in promoting an export-led recovery.

‘Irish exporters are clearly competing successfully at world-class level and conscious of the recent economic slow-down in some of our markets these trade figures assure me that the exporting sector will continue to be competitive.

‘Our continued strong export performance will be a key factor underpinning our economic prosperity”, the Minister concluded.

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