Mr. Brian Cotter:

With regard to the make-up of exports, the trend over a number of years has been that services exports have increased at a faster pace than manufacturing exports have tightened. Manufacturing output from US companies has been quite strong over the past couple of years but I do not have information on their contribution to last year's figures.

In general, if we look at the manufacturing base here and stand back and look at it over the decades, we see a shift. Often, unless manufacturing is very advanced or involved with high technology, such as the type of work being done by INTEL or EMC, it comes under significant cost pressures. As we have developed a higher standard of living, our cost base has become more expensive, which has tended to put these operations under a degree of pressure. In my remarks I mentioned inter-company trade and value chains. These things become part of the mix. We have seen a shift with regard to manufacturing. There were more options in the last decade within Europe and places like Poland have done very well in the area of manufacturing. There has been a shift in the past 20 years to centres of excellence in Asia. We have also seen the United States become more competitive, particularly in regard to energy, where the cost of gas is one third of what it was in 2008 there because it is exploring policy and new gas reserves have come on stream. All of this weighs on the minds of companies here.

What companies here are doing, whatever their nationality, both successful indigenous companies and multinational companies, is focusing on widening the amount of activities they do. They control the development cycle, do research and development, bring in new products and bring them to commercialisation. They start the manufacturing process here, they engineer in all the quality and remove the cost in the process. Then, at that point, they possibly move that range of products to a different and cheaper location. Therefore, they are becoming centres of excellence and maintaining their pivotal role.

There is a whole cadre of management here which did not exist 20 years ago, or even 15 years ago. These people have global responsibilities. They are responsible for plants not only in Cork, but also in Singapore and parts of China. They are sitting in Galway, but have responsibility for plants in Boston, New Mexico, Costa Rica and Bulgaria. I mention those two in particular because two people came to mind, but they are not alone. There is now a whole cadre of management here with a track record that offers great potential for more, particularly when it comes to our ambitions in research and development. This has been the general trend in terms of manufacturing, apart from industry such as car manufacturing.

Recently, Forfás issued a report which suggested that with the best possible outcome in terms of competitiveness inputs - we control costs and address skills shortages - there is a potential of 22,000 new jobs by 2016 in manufacturing alone. We would subscribe to that because the manufacturing base here is quite strong. It is under pressure because of cost changes and lack of demand in Europe, but the experience and the skills to make it happen exist here. We should be conscious of this and ensure we do not lose this manufacturing base because so much hangs off it. We are optimistic in this regard.