Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)
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Question 41: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the ratio of exports from here by foreign companies to exports from here by indigenous companies in millions of euro; if that ratio is increasing; the breakdown of export figures for 2005, which are down on 2004, in these terms; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18101/05]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Trade statistics produced by the Central Statistics Office are not broken down by company ownership, so it is not possible to say precisely what the ratio of exports from the multi-national sector to exports from the indigenous sector is. However, Forfás conducts an annual business survey of economic impact, the ABS, which analyses, inter alia, exports by company ownership. This survey is conducted among the client companies of Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, Shannon Development and Údarás na Gaeltachta and covers both merchandise exports and services exports. For those reasons its scope is different from the CSO trade statistics.

The ABS for 2003, the last year for which statistics are available, showed that indigenous exporters accounted for approximately 11.4% of total exports surveyed, or €9.3227 billion of the survey total of €81.8057 billion. In 2000, indigenous exports accounted for approximately 12.5%, or €9.0964 billion, of the total of €72.5728 billion surveyed. Indigenous exports accounted for 11.8% and 11.2% of the totals for 2001 and 2002, respectively.

It is possible that the proportion of indigenous exports as a proportion of the total is higher than indicated in the ABS, as a number of large Irish companies with substantial exports are not counted among the clients of the State agencies on whose behalf the ABS is conducted. The survey suggests that after a slight decline in the years 2001 and 2003, the proportion of exports accounted for by indigenous companies has begun to rise again.

This Department is working with the CSO to enhance the available trade statistics so that greater information on trade by company ownership can be obtained. At the moment, I am not in a position to say when this work will be completed.