CSO Publishes Statistical Guide to Brexit
The Central Statistic Office released “Brexit: Ireland and the UK in numbers”, on Wednesday, December 7. The publication provides the available figures covering the main areas of Ireland’s engagement with the UK.
“Following the vote by the electorate in the United Kingdom to leave the European Union in June 2016, the CSO decided to compile a suite of aggregate tables which describes the relationship between Ireland and the UK in numbers,” CSO Director General Pádraig Dalton said. “This report contains 24 tables covering the main areas for which we have data on our engagement with the UK and marks the first step in this dissemination process. We will shortly launch an electronic publication which will contain the tables in this report along with other more detailed information. It is also planned to publish on the CSO website in early 2017 a dedicated page which will track indicators on our relationship with the UK. This page will be similar to the page on the CSO website “Key Economic Indicators” and will be created using data in the CSO databank and thus will always be up to date.”
The report shows that flows of direct investment into Ireland were €169.8 billion in 2015 while the United Kingdom had a disinvestment of €4.1 billion. Direct investment flows abroad from Ireland were €149.9 billion in 2015 and there was a flow of direct investment into the UK from Ireland of €0.5 billion. Irish stocks of direct investment abroad were €815.2 billion at the end of 2015 and the UK accounted for 10.9% of this. The stock of direct investment into Ireland was €795.6 billion at the end of 2015, of which investment from the UK accounted for 4.6%. The value of Irish residents’ holdings of foreign securities was €1,935 billion at the end of December 2014 and UK issued instruments accounted for €343 billion, or 17.7%, of the total holdings.
Commenting on the detail of the report, statistician Helen Cahill said: “The number of persons engaged in Irish owned foreign affiliates was 307,999 in 2014 and 86,180 (28%) were located in the UK. The turnover of Irish owned foreign affiliates was €99bn in 2014 and of this €37.6bn (38%) was in the UK. Ireland exported €101.8bn in services in 2014 and €18bn (18%) of these exports went to the United Kingdom. Imports of services amounted to €109.4bn in 2014 and €11.4bn (10%) of these imports were from the UK.”
The report shows that Ireland exported €112.4bn of goods in 2015 and €15.6bn (13.9%) of these goods went to the UK. The top 5 categories of goods exported to the UK in 2015 were: Meat & meat preparations (€1.9bn); Medical & pharmaceutical products (€1.5bn); Organic chemicals (€1.0bn); Essential oils, perfume materials; toilet & cleansing preps (€0.8bn) and; Dairy products & birds’ eggs (€0.8bn).
Imports of goods amounted to €70.1bn in 2015 and €18bn (25.7%) of these imported goods arrived from the UK. The top 5 categories of goods imported from the UK in 2015 were: Petroleum, petroleum products & related materials (€1.9bn); Gas, natural & manufactured (€1.1bn); Miscellaneous manufactured articles n.e.s. (€1.1bn); Essential oils, perfume materials; toilet & cleansing preps (€0.8bn) and; All other commodities and transactions (€0.7bn).
There were 8.6 million overseas trips to Ireland by non-residents in 2015 and visitors from Great Britain accounted for 3.5 million (41%) of these trips. The total expenditure (excluding fares) by non-residents on overseas trips to Ireland was €4.2bn in 2015 and expenditure by visitors from Great Britain accounted for €971m (23%) of this. Average expenditure (excluding fares) in Ireland by all visitors was €487 while the average spend by visitors from Great Britain was €274. Visitors from Great Britain spent an average of 4.3 nights in Ireland in 2015 compared to an average of 7.1 nights by all visitors. The number of second hand (used) private cars registered in Ireland was 51,663 in 2014 and 97% of these cars were imported from the UK.
The full report can be found here.
