Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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166. To ask the Minister for Finance the number of goods import transactions and goods export transactions, respectively, in 2018 in Irish-UK trade; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16744/19]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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A breakdown of individual goods export and import transactions to and from the UK for 2018 is not available from the CSO.

However the Central Statistics Office’s (CSO) statistical releases on external trade show that, in 2018, Ireland exported €16.1 billion worth of goods to the UK, and imported €19.8 billion worth of goods from the UK. This represents 11% of total goods exports and 22% of total goods imports.

The UK is one of Ireland’s most important trading partners. Maintaining the closest possible trading relationship between the EU and the UK is therefore one of the Government’s key Brexit priorities.

The Government will continue to work to improve the business environment – to make it more competitive, to assist exporters to diversify markets, and to provide better infrastructure.

Longer-term, we need to mitigate against the potential of regulatory divergence between the UK and EU standards given its potential impact on trade and investment and the competitiveness of our businesses. We will therefore be working to minimise this impact and to ensure a level playing field.

Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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167. To ask the Minister for Finance the number of goods import transactions for companies, individuals and firms in 2018 in Irish-UK trade; the number of goods export transactions for companies, individuals and firms for the same year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16745/19]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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A breakdown of goods export and imports transactions to and from the UK by company, individual and firm level is not available from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

However, the CSO has produced a detailed insight into Ireland’s trade with the UK in terms of enterprise size, in their publication titled ‘Irish Traders and the UK 2016’released onthe 3^rdof October 2018. This is a new publication by the CSO which analyses goods exports and imports with the UK in terms of the activity and size of the enterprises trading. It describes who is trading with the UK rather than what is being traded. The Trade by Enterprise Characteristics data (TEC data) published in the document cover enterprises with annual imports or exports of more than €5,000. Enterprise size is determined by the number of employees. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) include micro (less than 10 employees), small (10 to 49) and medium enterprises (50 to 249). Large enterprises have 250 employees or more.

The most recent publication shows that approximately 60 per cent of the total value of goods exports to the UK in 2016 with a value of €8.3 billion was from SMEs. The remaining 40 per cent was from large enterprises who exported €6.2 billion of goods to the UK.

For goods imports from the UK, SMEs accounted for almost two thirds, with a value of €13.1 billion. Of this amount, €4.9 billion, a quarter of all UK imports, was imported by micro enterprises. Large enterprises imported €6.5 billion, or one-third of all imports from the UK.

For more information please see the table below from the CSO’s publication.

Table 1. Exports by size of enterprise 2016

Micro (0-9 employees), Small (10-49 employees), Medium (50-249 employees), Large (over 250 employees).

Source: CSO (2018) ‘Irish Traders and the UK 2016’; Table 5.

Table 2. Imports by size of enterprise 2016

*Micro (0-9 employees), Small (10-49 employees), Medium (50-249 employees), Large (over 250 employees).

Source: CSO (2018) ‘Irish Traders and the UK 2016’; Table 6.

I have been informed that the CSO intends to publish an update of this study, which will include 2017 data, in the coming months.