Sales of Irish food and drink abroad grew by more than 3 per cent last year to nearly £4.9 billion, preliminary figures from An Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, have shown.

But the sectors exhibiting growth are the prepared consumer foods, drinks and dairy sectors and the figures mask a very difficult year for beef and sheepmeat exports.

Sheepmeat volumes fell due to reduced supplies while live cattle exports were curtailed because of the closure of the Egyptian market.

The overall value of beef exports increased marginally but the increased volume was offset by reduced market returns. The recovery of the UK market for Irish beef, from 60,000 to 90,000 tonnes is a very welcome trend in what is Ireland's largest EU market.

The real success story in the industry has been the growth in drinks exports which grew by 11 per cent and was only out-performed by the prepared consumer foods sector.

This sector which covers such areas as ready-made meals, pizza, confectionery, chilled desserts, performed exceptionally well returning a 12.9 per cent increase taking export values last year to £733 million.

The board said the outlook for this sector remained very positive for 1998 as nearly 80 per cent of the exports were sold into the UK where the pound has a competitive advantage against sterling.

The dairy and food ingredients sector performed well too but only when the pound became more competitive against major European currencies. The growth in this sector was 8.3 per cent.

However, the difficulties facing the Irish beef sector present what the board says is a challenge in the coming year because of the increased supplies of beef to export plants and an increasing preference in Europe for domestic beef.

Exports to other international markets also increased slightly with Russia remaining the most important volume market.

Beef sales into EU intervention, which are included in the overall beef export figures, remained more or less unchanged at 57,000 tonnes in 1997.