… account for 34% of total Irish exports.
That is all.
This stat was presented by the CSO's National Accounts Department at a seminar organised by the Statistics Department in UCC. I will link to the slides when they are available. And note it is the top 10 companies, not the top 10%. Amazing.
That is a fascinating statistic, do we have names? Even knowing the industry of these firms might give some insight. I presume they are mostly foreign multinationals?
ReplyDeleteHi Anon,
ReplyDeleteThe statistic certainly jumped out at me. I think we can be pretty sure that these are multination companies in either computer services or pharmacauticals. Computer services make up 40% of our service exports and chemicals make up 60% of our merchandise exports.
The presentation did not give any details of the companies, nor can we expect the CSO to. They are bound to secrecy by legislation. If they did reveal any company specific data they would struggle to get anyone to file an accurate survey file with them. They have a Large Case Unit with gives particular attention to these companies because of the impact they have the numbers.
Software and computer services is a relatively footloose industry that can be easily moved. Chemical manufacturing is a bit more tethered to its location but I think the threat here is the expiration of patents and what companies have upstream to replace the drugs currently manufacturer here.