Damien English
Ceist:60 Mr. English asked the Minister for Finance his views on the current trend in exports and its relevance for macroeconomics policy. [14576/03]
Written Answers. - Export Levels.
As the House knows, Ireland has a very open economy which is more affected than many others by world economic conditions. The success of our economy relies significantly on continued inward investment and on the performance of the export sector in selling goods and services to other countries.
The continued global economic downturn, and the appreciation of the euro have been factors in the recent export performance. The strength of the euro has made Irish exports less competitive, particularly in the US and the UK markets.
The CSO have published provisional merchandise trade figures for the first two months of 2003. These figures show that exports fell by 24% in value terms in January this year compared with January 2002, and that they fell again in February by 16%. At budget time last year the forecast for 2003 as a whole was for real volume export growth of 5%. These figures clearly show that it is increasingly important that the competitiveness of the economy improves in order to avoid pricing Irish goods out of export markets and to thereby secure Irish jobs.