Just five companies accounted for nearly half (44%) of all Irish exports in 2022, according to new findings from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
The CSO found that foreign-owned companies accounted for 87% of total exports that year, and 73% of total imports. This is despite the fact that just 18% of exporters (2,099) and 8% (3,813) of importers were foreign-owned.
“Ireland exported more than €199 billion worth of goods in 2022, and €173 billion of that was exported by foreign-owned enterprises,” said Ciarán Counihan, Statistician in the International Trade in Goods Division.
The 10 largest companies exported 57% of the value of exports in 2022. Large enterprises, with over 250 employees, were also responsible for 80% of the total value of exports.
The top 50 enterprises exported over three quarters of total goods, equal to €155 billion.
When it comes to importers, there were almost 50,000 enterprises (49,517) who were identified as goods importers on the CSO Business Register in 2022.
Large companies were less dominant when it came to imports, with the top five enterprises accounting for exactly a quarter of total imports in 2022, while the largest 50 importers accounted for 52% of total imports.
According to Mr Counihan, almost one-third of importing enterprises sourced their goods from only one country, while three-quarters had five or less partner countries.
“The UK is Ireland’s most significant trading partner in terms of the number of enterprises that export and import. Three-quarters of all enterprises that imported goods in 2022 traded with the UK, while more than two-thirds of all exporters sent goods to the UK,” he said.
Just over 1,000 exporting enterprises (1,054) had ten or more partner countries and they exported more than €175 billion of goods in 2022.
These findings come as earlier this week, AIB warned in its half-year report that a global credit crunch could hit the Irish economy “harder than most” due to its reliance on the multinational sector, and lead to a sharp rise in unemployment, with hundreds of thousands left unemployed.