asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the trade figures with the Soviet Union since the establishment of diplomatic relations and the type of goods exported and imported.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Ireland-USSR Trade.
20.
Diplomatic relations were established with the Soviet Union in September 1974. As the statistics on trade with that country since then are quite extensive, I propose, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, to circulate the information sought by the Deputy in the form of a tabular statement.
Trade with Soviet Union.
|
Export |
Imports |
Balance |
|
|
£ |
£ |
£ |
|
|
1973 |
475,606 |
3,286,767 |
-2,811,161 |
|
1974 |
8,257,248 |
14,907,435 |
-6,650,187 |
|
1975 |
10,050,242 |
18,040,767 |
-7,990,525 |
|
1976 |
1,853,974 |
22,057,809 |
-20,203,835 |
|
1977 |
6,344,211 |
25,613,660 |
-19,269,449 |
|
1978 |
5,533,630 |
24,922,915 |
-19,389,285 |
|
1979* |
15,321,000 |
25,663,000 |
-10,342,000 |
|
(3,605,000) |
(14,237,000) |
(-10,632,000) |
* January-July.
Data for equivalent period of 1978 given in brackets.
Exports to the Soviet Union.
The chief exports by year were:
1974: Beef and veal (£7.536 million), potassic fertilisers (£.451 million) and miscellaneous food preparations (£.068 million).
1975: Beef and veal (£8.793 million), heterocyclic compounds (£.32 million), miscellaneous food preparations (£.205 million) and electric power machinery (£.198 million).
1976: Miscellaneous food preparations (£.476 million), fabrics of man-made fibres (£.392 million) and beef and veal (£.321 million).
1977: Manganese oxides (£1.525 million), refined sugars (£1.396 million), miscellaneous food preparations (£.647 million) and automatic data processing equipment (£.618 million).
1978: Automatic data processing equipment (£1.277 million), miscellaneous food preparations (£1.107 million), manganese oxides (£1.005 million) and leather (£.411 million).
1979: (January-June) Butter (£9.483 million), refined sugar (£1.604 million). Other prepared or preserved meat (£1.181 million) and zinc ores and concentrates (£1.066 million).
Imports from the Soviet Union.
The chief imports by year were:
1974: Sawn coniferous wood (£1.981 million), distillate fuels (£.76 million) and raw cotton other than linters (£.632 million).
1975: Residual fuel oils (£9.625 million), distillate fuels (£4.815 million), heterocyclic compounds (£.851 million) and sawn coniferous wood (£.718 million).
1976: Residual fuel oils (£12.587 million), distillate fuels (£2.15 million), sawn coniferous wood (£2.612 million), and raw cotton other than linters (£2.062 million).
1977: Residual fuel oils (£11.596 million), distillate fuels (£8.91 million), raw cotton other than linters (£1.731 million) and sawn coniferous wood (£1.690 million).
1978: Distillate fuels (or gas oils) (£10.947 million), residual fuel oils (£8.929 million), sawn coniferous wood (£1.652 million and acrylonitrile (£.817 million).
1979: (January-June) Distillate fuels (or gas oils) (£7.226 million), crude petroleum oils (£5.028 million), residual fuel oils (£4.602 million), acrylonitrile (£.426 million) and tractors (£.353 million).
Will the tabular statement include details of the different types of goods?
Will the Minister give us the final figures?
If by "final figures" the Deputy means the figures for the first nine months of this year——
For the whole period.
When the Deputy receives the tabular statement he can total the figures himself. There has been a significant increase, particularly this year. Exports to the Soviet Union in the period January to July this year were of the order of £15,321,000 in comparison with export of £3,605,000 last year, which is a welcome increase.
What about the import figures?
The import figures for the same period were £25 million.
Now we are getting down to business. Is it not true that our trade balance with Russia is most unfavourable? Even this year the figures indicate that we exported £15 million worth of goods and imported the same amount. What has the Minister to say about that kind of trade with Russia?
Since diplomatic relations were established with Russia in 1974—and the Deputy, who was a Parliamentary Secretary at the time, will be aware of the significance of that step—the trade pattern has improved considerably in the last year or two. While the Deputy has noticed that exports were £15 million as against £25 million in imports, namely, less than 2:1, a few years ago it was of the order of 5:1.
I apologise to the Chair for interrupting Deputy Murphy. I did not realise that he was asking a supplementary at the time. Will the published figures give sufficient detail as regards product to enable us to assess their signifance?
I will arrange to do that, if possible, for the last two or three years.
Is the Minister satisfied that we are utilising to the full the bargaining power that is on our side in our semi-State organisation, since it is a feature of such East-West trade that it is State to State? Is the Minister satisfied that we are fully utilising it from our period in Government when we tried to get co-ordination between the various semi-State bodies? Is that co-ordination continuing satisfactorily?
It is continuing satisfactorily. In case Deputy Murphy is worried about the imports, I should like to say that 80 per cent of them were petroleum products.