€500m drop in exports as imports decrease by €168m

EXPORTS fell by €500 million in August, while imports dropped by €168 million, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) initial trading figures for the month, revealed yesterday.

And the Small Firms Association (SFA) yesterday warned that exports could fall further because of poor weather.

It said that significant business losses will arise as a result of the atrocious weather, with many businesses finding it impossible to get products to markets and customers. Seasonally adjusted exports increased significantly in July 2002 from the low of 6,874 million in June 2002 to 7,791m. On a similar basis, imports increased from 4,393m to 4,558m.

“However, the general level of trade remains below that of the first six months of this year,” the CSO said. The CSO said initial indications for August 2002 show seasonally adjusted exports decreased by 501m and imports by 168m relative to July 2002. The corresponding unadjusted figures are exports of 6,480m (down 1,394m) and imports of 3,820m (down 713m).

Comparing the January to July 2002 figures with the same period in 2001 shows that exports increased from 54,509m to 56,730m (+4%).

Exports of medical and pharmaceutical products increased from 5,034m to 8,232m (+64%), organic chemicals from 10,346m to 11,541m (+12%), while exports of electrical machinery and parts decreased from 5,896m to 5,270m (-11%).

Exports to Germany decreased from 7,127m to 3,835m (-46%) and there were also significant decreases in respect of the Netherlands, France, the Philippines and Japan.

Exports to Belgium increased from 2,540m to 7,258m (+186%), Britain from 11,393m to 13,793m (+21%) and Switzerland from 1,505m to 2,060m (+37%).

Imports from France decreased from 1,811m to 1,364m (-25%) and from the US from 5,563m to 5,257m (-5%). Imports from Britain increased from some 10,578m to 12,287m (+16%) and from Finland from 222m to 561m (+152%).