Exports by Irish companies to countries outside the EU recovered in February after suffering a sharp fall in the previous month.
Figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) yesterday show that the value of non-EU exports rose from €2.3 billion in January to €2.7 billion in February. This brought exports close to levels reached last December, when confidence in a global recovery was gathering force.
The seasonally adjusted numbers reveal that non-EU imports were less positive in February however, falling to their lowest level in more than two years after two months of decline.
An unadjusted breakdown of the data shows that exports over the first two months of the year were 10 per cent weaker than in the same period of 2003 at €4.9 billion.
The fall was driven largely by a decline in chemical and pharmaceutical exports, which were down 22 per cent and 41 per cent respectively.
The chemical sector as a whole, which includes some of the State's largest multinational firms such as Pfizer and Eli Lilly, continued to dominate non-EU exports at the start of the year however, accounting for close to half of all such trade.
The most notable rise in exports outside the EU in the first two months came in professional, scientific and controlling apparatus, where the value of trade more than doubled to €462 million.
Exports to the US, the Republic's largest non-EU trading partner, fell back by 15 per cent to €2.5 billion in the first two months when compared to the start of 2003. The drop is likely to be connected to the fall-off in chemical exports, of which the US is the largest recipient.
