No room for complacency over competitiveness
Council chairman Don Thornhill emphasised the need to relentlessly continue to work to improve Ireland’s competitiveness.
“Ireland cannot aim for just being good enough, we must strive to be world beating in all the areas essential for competitiveness,” he said.
“While significant progress has been made, Ireland has much further to go if we are to deliver long-lasting competitiveness and sustainable growth.
“We need to continue the emphasis on expanding exports through increasing productivity in all sectors of the economy and through developing new exports businesses and sectors.
“The NCC will be publishing Ireland’s Competitiveness Challenge report later in the year, which will outline detailed recommendations on addressing Ireland’s competitiveness issues,” he said.
The report shows that Ireland’s competitiveness performance in 2011 is mixed. Notwithstanding the problems in the banking, construction and retail sector, the export-focused enterprise sectors are performing strongly. Ireland’s exporting companies are performing well driven by significant competitiveness gains.
On the downside, however, high public debt, falling investment and shortages of credit all weaken Ireland’s competitive position, and Ireland remains an expensive country in which to do business.
The council also identified seven priority competitiveness areas: cost of doing business; access to credit; labour activation; taxation policy; education; and infrastructure.
Among the report's finding were that while Ireland remains a wealthy country, many members of society remain at risk of poverty — 13% of single people in work in Ireland are at risk of poverty.
Ireland performs relatively well in terms of families with two or more adults and dependent children: 4.4% of families in this category are considered at risk of poverty compared with 9.5% in this category in the eurozone.
