Sunday, October 29, 2017

More than half Irish indigenous exports go to 4 Anglo-Saxon countries

Ryanair’s annual revenues in the 12 months to March 2017 were at €6.65bn. According to Enterprise Ireland indigenous tradeable exports in 2016 to Europe-excluding UK, Africa, Middle East, Russia, Central Asia and India, were valued at €6.95bn. UK exports were at €7.75bn and to US/Canada were at €3.74bn.

In 1973 when we joined the EEC about 55% of total exports went to the UK. Today the same ratio of indigenous exports go to 4 Anglo-Saxon countries: UK, US, Canada and Australia.

Even though there are more direct jobs in indigenous exporting firms, 201,100 at end 2016, compared with 199,900 in IDA Ireland foreign-owned (FDI: foreign direct investment) exporting client firms, it’s striking that the onset of Brexit has not focused attention on the narrow base of indigenous firms.

The main attention of policymakers has been on getting ready-made jobs from US firms and these firms are also the target of the big Irish professional firms.

Both the FDI and indigenous sectors are not engaged in significant innovation.

Ireland’s individual material standard of living is similar to Italy’s while in contrast, Denmark is a high-wage knowledge economy.

See more here on indigenous trade; the small number of exporting firms; lack of language skills etc. and how Denmark, which in the 1950s was also highly dependent on agricultural exports, evolved to be a high-wage knowledge economy:

Irish Exports: Eurozone top market but poor for local firms