The Irish Maritime Transport Economist Volume 8

Abstract

The Irish Maritime Development Office (IMDO) of the Marine Institute publishes the Irish Maritime Transport Economist each year to provide a descriptive statistical analysis of the Irish ports and shipping services sector, as well as the many factors influencing its performance. After an extremely bleak review in 2009 we are at last able to again reference the word “growth” in this our 8th annual edition of the Irish Maritime Transport Economist. Over the previous 30 months we have seen an incredible contraction take place in the Irish economy where growth across most business sectors was in short supply. In our previous review we had identified that the rate and scale of decline in the principle shipping market segments was slowing and that we were optimistic that perhaps we had reached the bottom in terms of shipping volume erosion. This year’s publication confirms that some recovery took place during 2010. The impetus towards a gradual recovery was led by our export sector, in particular the broad chemical and pharmaceutical segments. The ongoing recovery in the global economy also boosted exports by our indigenous agri-business and food & drink sectors. However the export recovery does not accurately reflect the overall state of the economy, and over the course of 2010 the precarious state of our banking sector continued to unravel with further serious financial liabilities being exposed. The over-arching consequence of this has dampened economic confidence, impacted on consumer demand, and this in turn has lead to a further decline in import volumes last year.