Ireland - Foreign trade

Computers and office products have become some of Ireland's most profitable export products (28%). The country also manufactures musical instruments (5.2%), making 12.7% of the world's exports. Other export items include chemicals like nitrogen compounds (10.9%), electronic circuitry (5.2%), and medicines (4.9%).

In 2000 Ireland's imports were distributed among the following categories:

Consumer goods	12.8%
Food	5.0%
Fuels	4.0%
Industrial supplies	17.7%
Machinery	43.8%
Transportation	10.6%
Other	6.1%

Principal trading partners in 2000 (in millions of US dollars) were as follows:

COUNTRY	EXPORTS	IMPORTS	BALANCE
United Kingdom	16,659	15,866	793
United States	13,103	8,431	4,672
Germany	8,633	2,947	5,686
France	5,825	2,387	3,438
Netherlands	4,234	1,614	2,620
Belgium	3,662	785	2,877
Italy	3,058	1,126	1,932
Japan	2,878	2,436	442
Spain	1,883	677	1,206
Switzerland	1,876	353	1,523