€4bn Irish Trade Surplus Welcomed

It has emerged that the latest trade statistics indicating a €4.079bn seasonally adjusted trade surplus in June is the highest figure in a decade.

Trade Minister Richard Bruton has welcomed the news and said that the figures show that the value of exports in June 2011 was up 5.6% compared to June 2010, at €8.343bn.

Ireland's Merchandise Trade surplus in June was €4.473bn - the highest since June 2001.

For the first six months of the year the trade surplus stands at €21.9bn compared with €21.2m in the first half of 2010 - an increase of 3.3%.

Merchandise exports for the first six months of this year at €46.9bn are up 6.1% compared to the first half of last year.

Detailed country specific data for the first five months of 2011, also published today, show healthy increases in exports to both key traditional markets and to the new high potential destinations, over the same period in 2010.

Exports to the United States increased by 11.8% to €9.08bn. The importance of the U.S. market will be underpinned when Minister Bruton leads a trade mission there in mid September.

Exports to the EU rose by 4.2% to €22.336bn in the first five months of 2011. Within the EU there has been some very important export achievements to countries such as the Czech Republic where in the first five months of 2011 exports grew by 95% to €235m and to Sweden by 25% to €345m.

In addition, some high potential markets on which there has been a particular focus recently have shown very substantial growth over the same period, with exports to Brazil increasing by over 9% to €112m and exports to India, (where the Minister led a trade mission earlier this year) growing by 30% to €83m. Exports to South Korea increased by 5.3% to €141m.

"I have said repeatedly that my priorities are to; get our costs down, get credit to good businesses and to support the innovation and R&D agenda.

"These trade figures show what our entrepreneurs can achieve when the conditions are right and only encourage me further to pursue this agenda so that we can continue to support export-led growth and recovery," he said.

"These are very welcome trends and show that Irish business is rising to the challenge of seeking out new markets and winning new business. These figures emphasise both the importance of trade to the economy and its potential to be a significant contributor to recovery.

"The Government is devoting considerable effort to the food sector, which is so important for Irish owned firms. It is indeed heartening to see that food exports grew by over 19% to €3.151bn, while key high technology exports in areas such as medical and pharmaceutical products grew at a very fast pace. We are strengthening our already leading position in that area."

The Minister also welcomed data released by EUROSTAT, the EU statistics body last week, which showed that Ireland had the third largest Trade surplus of the 27 Member States for the five months January - May 2011 (after Germany and the Netherlands).

(BMcC/GK)