Ireland's exports to China up over 20 pct in first 11 months of 2020

Ireland exported a total of 9.748 billion euros (about 11.8 billion U.S. dollars) worth of goods to China in the first 11 months of 2020, up by 20.21 percent compared with the same period of 2019, according to data released by the country's Central Statistics Office (CSO) on Friday.

Meanwhile, its total goods imports from China were valued at 5.463 billion euros, up 13.59 percent year-on-year.

The trade surplus that Ireland enjoyed over China during the January-November period of 2020 was close to 4.3 billion euros, an increase of nearly one billion euros when compared with the corresponding period of the previous year.

The CSO figures also showed that China was the largest trade partner of Ireland in Asia and the fifth largest trade partner of the country in the world in the first 11 months of 2020.

Currently the United States is the largest market for the Irish goods exports while Britain is the largest source of the goods imported by Ireland.

In the first 11 months of 2020, Ireland exported over 46 billion euros worth of goods to the United States, accounting for nearly 31 percent of the country's total exports, while its goods imports from Britain were valued at about 17.9 billion euros, accounting for over 23 percent of the total imports.

During the period, Ireland exported a total of 149.051 billion euros worth of goods while its total goods imports were valued at 76.918 billion euros, up 5.8 percent and down 6.6 percent respectively when compared with the same period of 2019. (1 euro = 1.21 U.S. dollars)