€3bn in Chinese goods imported

Almost €11m worth of perfume and essential oils and €6m of leather goods, including “dressed furskins”, are just some of the €3bn of goods imported from China into Ireland last year.

And while construction is floundering, prefabricated properties appear to be booming, with €38m worth brought in from the Asian country in 2012.

Unsurprisingly, electrical goods represented almost a third of the imports. That was broken down into office machines and automatic data processing machines (€595m); telecommunications and sound equipment (€285m); and electrical machinery, apparatus, and appliances (€216m).

Fashion from China is also a popular commodity. Last year, over €440m worth of clothing and accessories was imported.

Almost €120m worth of shoes were also snapped up and we imported almost €52m worth of handbags, as well as travel containers, presumably suitcases, from China in the same year.

Ireland would also appear to be very dependent on China for chemical items. Last year, Ireland took in almost €62m worth of medical and pharmaceutical products and more than €75m worth of organic chemicals. A further €11m was spent on perfumes, essential oils, and cleansing preps.

What is surprising, given Ireland’s sizeable food industry, is the amount of consumables we import from China. For example, our meat industry is one of the biggest, per capita, in the world, yet we imported over €4m worth of meat and “meat preparations” from the Asian country last year.

A further €11m worth of vegetables and fruit was brought in from China. Sugar, “sugar preparation”, and honey was shipped in at a cost of almost €3.4m, and a similar amount was spent on coffee, tea, cocoa, and spices.

Richard Bruton, the enterprise minister, said the figures he provided in a parliamentary question did not include services, as they will not be available until the middle of this year.

He did, however, say that, in 2011, the total value of imports and services was €3.039bn.

In fact, the amount Ireland exported to China was significantly more in that year at €4.774bn.