Food and drinks 7% of exports

Dublin: Food and drink exports represent over 7% of total Irish exports and have the highest retained value of any sector, the European Meat Forum was told in Dublin yesterday.

Bord Bia explained while only 21% of the value of multinational exports is spent on Irish goods and services, over 90% of the value of food and drink exports, including those of beef, goes on Irish inputs.

This means that every €1 of food and drink exports is worth €4.50 of multinational exports to the Irish economy. Beef exports in 2003 were worth almost €1.3 billion, a fifth of total Irish food and drink exports.