The stalled WTO global agreement –the DOHA round – could boost world trade by $360 billion and Irish exports by €16 billion, if implemented, state Irish Exporters Association (IEA), at the IEA Gold Medal Award ceremony for Peter Sutherland

At the Irish Exporters Association annual President’s Lunch held today (Wednesday, 22nd June 2011) Mark Fitzgerald the IEA President outlined how the export sector was solidly building the basis for the emergence of Ireland from its recent economic and sovereign debt problems.
According to Mr Fitzgerald,
‘’In 2010, exports grew by 7.8% bringing the total exports of goods and services to €162Bn, the highest export figure ever attained by Ireland. Exporters continued their sales expansion in the first quarter of this year with export growth of 9.4% being recorded.’’
He went on to say;
‘’The further good news from the first quarter is that our exporters of merchandise goods increased sales by 10.5% driven by the pharmaceutical sector which grew its exports by 19% and the agri-food sector which grew its exports by 17%. As someone who works in the Financial Services Industry, I was delighted to see that the exports of the entire services sector grew by 8%. This performance in turn is driven by computer services exports which increased by 9.5%. It is significant to note that the computer services sector now accounts for 39% of total services exports.
The International Financial Services sector, particularly those companies with a global footprint such as those based in the IFSC have returned to rapid growth with the sector growing its exports out of Ireland by 11.3% in the first quarter.
I can tell you, we in the IEA are now forecasting export growth of 9.1% for the full year 2011’’.
However, he warned against taking the export growth for granted, stating;
‘’The continuing turbulence in oil producing countries, the recent natural disaster in Japan which has invoked all our sympathy, the continuing lack of credit facilities for our exporters, exchange rate fluctuations particularly in Sterling and the Dollar, not to mention the sheer unpredictability of the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis and finally a stagnant domestic economy with very weak consumer demand – all these factors in their own right constitute significant challenges for our exporters but taken in combination should make us realise that export growth cannot be taken for granted with significant risks persisting.’’
In presenting the IEA Gold Medal for trade facilitating to Peter Sutherland, Mr Fitzgerald said;
‘’ I think it would be true to say that this year’s Gold medal is being awarded to someone who not only has facilitated trade at domestic level but who is probably the most recognised and distinguished advocate for open trade on the world stage for the past quarter of a century.
As Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), formerly GATT between 1993 - 1995, Peter D Sutherland [KCMG] was the architect for the success of GATT/WTO in establishing an open and rules based trading system with a universal membership which contains the full spectrum of size and economic strength of the world’s economies. Mr Sutherland’s contribution to the development of the WTO is immeasurable and in turn the importance of the WTO today cannot be overstated. An example of its continued relevance to the world’s population is that as the recent global banking crisis unfolded the WTO played a crucial role in preventing a wholesale return to protectionism. History tells us that it was protectionism which transformed the Wall Street crash of 1929 into a much deeper economic disaster which we know as the Great Depression.’’
In his concluding comments Mr Fitzgerald stated;
‘’In 2010, Mr Sutherland co-chaired an international trade expert group at the request of the German, British, Indonesian and Turkish governments and have just published their report at the end of May 2011. The report contains some clear messages and reflects the group’s vast collective experience in the field of trade, and provides a sound basis for discussions on taking forward shared objectives on trade liberalisation both inside and outside the Doha framework. In particular, the report highlights convincingly the advantages of a completion of the Doha round in terms of new market access, reform of farm trade, preventing protectionism and reinforcing the WTO system. In this context, the group points out that – a Doha deal would result in US$360Bn of additional trade volume. The IEA are confident that the DOHA round completion will benefit Ireland extensively and is expected to increase exports from Ireland by an additional €16 billion per annum.’’
-ENDS-
For further Information: John Whelan
Irish Exporters Association
Tel. 087 927 1243
Email: jfwhelan@irishexporters.ie