Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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254. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the percentages of tradeable exports made by foreign and indigenous firms in the year from when the most current data is available. [22636/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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For Ireland as a small open economy, sustainable long term growth is dependent on continued success in international markets. Although the global economy has been in a low growth phase over the last five years, Ireland’s internationally traded sector has driven solid economic growth, demonstrating its ability to rebound following a deep recessionary period. Our export led strategy is delivering jobs throughout the economy – there have been almost 209,000 jobs created since 2012 and the unemployment rate is now down to 6.2%.

In terms of agency supported enterprises, total exports for 2015 (latest data available) amounted to €171 billion.  Of that, exports of Irish-owned agency assisted firms were €18.7bn, equating to almost 11% of total exports by agency supported enterprises, as illustrated in the following table. 

In terms of Direct Economic Expenditures (materials and services sourced in Ireland and payroll), Irish-owned firms account for just over half of the total expenditure in the Irish economy by agency supported firms in 2015, as set out in the following tables.

Exports - agency supported enterprises

DirectEconomy Expenditures

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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255. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation her views on the analysis in the recent report (details supplied) regarding the percentages of tradeable exports made by foreign and indigenous owned firms. [22637/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The evidence provided by the report, Expanding and diversifying the manufactured exports of Irish-owned enterprises April 4, 2017, undertaken by the ESRI on behalf of my Department and Enterprise Ireland, highlights the balance of exports between multinational corporations and indigenous enterprises. This research on manufacturing exports examines how firms launch, adapt, diversify and grow their exports and provides insights into the opportunities, risks and challenges of operating in the global marketplace.

It shows that exporting is highly concentrated in a relatively small percentage of firms and most exporters sell a small number of products to few markets.  11% of highly globalised Irish-owned firms (exporting more than 20 products to over 20 destinations) account for 46% of total exports. Exporting firms continually adjust product and market mixes. In the context of indigenous manufacturing companies it outlines the risks and challenges faced by businesses across many sectors in gaining traction with new products in existing markets and new products in new markets.

Export growth is largely driven by product and market changes. While in the short and medium run export volumes may be largely explained by the sales of existing products to their current markets, in the long run, the drivers of export growth are expansion of markets and products.

The findings in this report formed an input into the development of Enterprise Ireland’s Strategy 2017-2020 – Build Scale, Expand Reach, Deliver Global Ambition, which is designed to support companies to further growth in existing markets and to develop new products and services to gain entry to new markets.

Following the UK withdrawal from the EU and given the level of Enterprise Ireland’s clients’ exports to the UK (37% in 2015), I have secured additional Capital and current funding for Enterprise Ireland in 2017, to further assist it in supporting clients, protecting Irish jobs and exports.

39 extra staff are being provided for Enterprise Ireland’s overseas offices and in the Irish based team. These will be assigned to markets that are growing and have scale (including China, India, Latin America, Africa) and markets where we are already well established but with potential for further growth (including UK, France, Benelux, Germany, USA, the Nordics).

Driving new growth and supporting companies exposed to Brexit is a priority for my Department.