Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Economics 23/12/2009: Couple more points on Ireland's trade data

Wading through CSO latest data, table below shows just how important the MNCs are to our trade and GDP:
Absent MNCs-led sectors in our economy, we would be running massive deficits even accounting for the wholesale collapse of consumer imports. And note that as our own economy is shrinking, net contribution of MNC's own trade balance to our GDP is rising in importance.

Let's look at geography:
  1. Overall exports are declining faster in September than they were over the last 9 months
  2. Exports to Great Britain, EU overall, and Euro area are falling faster in September 2009 than over the first 9 months of 2009
  3. Exports to France are falling slower in September 2009 than over the first 9 months of 2009
  4. Exports to Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden are falling faster in September 2009 than over the first 9 months of 2009
  5. Exports to Australia, China, Japan, Switzerland, and the USA are significantly improving over September 2009 relative to the first 9 months of 2009 – a strange result, given these exports are subject to dollar – euro exchange rate fluctuations.
And another way of looking at it is through the trade balance by country:
And one caveat - the cases where dramatic improvements in trade balance do not match those in exports are, of course, reflective of the collapse in imports.

2 comments:

patrick1978 said...

Happy Christmas to you and your family Constantin.
Bill Gates, the richest man man in the world is taking legal action against me.

Anonymous said...

What would be interesting to see is the historical shift ,if any of an increase in exports to both EU and eurozone. Also has the balance of trade with same improved or declined?

Also ,and perhaps critically,what is the break out of the above for the indigenous Irish business as opposed to MNC's.

If there has been little or no increase in exports and balance of trade with the EU and more particularly with the eurozone then the policy of eurozone membership is questionable.
This is especially important given our economic cycle (interest rate etc.) has been out of synch with the eurozone since we joined.


Regards,
Sean.