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Displaying items by tag: Exports Rise

Exports of goods rose by €1.1bn to Britain, and imports fell by €2.5bn, in the first six months this year, as companies rushed to adjust their supply chains across the Irish Sea following December's hard Brexit deal.

At over €6.7bn, the total value of goods exports to Britain was up by €1.1bn in the first half of the year from the same period in 2020, while imports from Britain fell sharply, by €2.5bn to €5.3bn.

The CSO figures may also point to changes in supply chains within the island of Ireland and potentially to a strengthening of the all-Ireland economy.

According to the CSO, exports to the North form the Republic rose to over €1.5bn in the first six months from €1.1bn a year earlier, while imports also rose to €1.7bn in the same period from around €1bn a year earlier.

In June, exports to Britain rose by €575m to €1.4bn from June 2020, helped by increases in chemicals and machinery, while imports in the month from Britain fell by €213m to €1bn.

The CSO figures also point to the overall disruption caused by the Covid-19 crisis, as Irish exports to the EU fell, and imports rose by a significant amount over the same period.

More from the Irish Examiner here.

Published in Irish Ports

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).