Manufacturing and agri-food sectors ‘the key drivers’ of export growth

SEVERAL factors boosted the economy’s record export performance in 2010, including a significant pick-up in activity in key global markets.

The BRIC countries including Brazil, Russia, India and China imported 12% more in 2010. Sales to the USA rose by 18% and to Canada by 27%.

Germany was the stand-out economy where we exported 42% more than in 2009.

The Irish Exporters Association’s (IEA) John Whelan said much of that increased output to Germany was in intermediary goods used in finished product made in Germany, whose own output is leading the way to a modest recovery across the European Union as a whole.

Mr Whelan, who is chief executive of the IEA, said we have to look to both the manufacturing and the agri food sectors to find “the key drivers” of export growth in the last year.

Those two categories were very much to the fore in 2010 and should also be significant players in the outcome for 2011, he said.

During the last quarter exports of merchandise grew by 27% compared with 2009 and that was a big factor in the record sales figures, he said.

Also driving the performance was the increase in sales achieved by the services sectors of 7.2%.

Overall it was clear throughout the year just gone that both manufacturing and agri-food were repositioning themselves in several ways to achieve better growth.

They engaged in cost cutting, moving up the value added chain, and exploiting renewed growth in global markets, said Whelan.

A shift away from the British market towards more buoyant markets in North and South America and Asia delivered the stronger figures that should maintain good growth in the current year, according to the IEA.