Ulster Unionist MLA for Mid-Ulster and Enterprise, Trade and Investment Spokesperson, Sandra Overend, has seen the potential in the export market for Northern Ireland, despite the disappointing figures from 2010 released by the Department for Enterprise, Trade and Investment this week.
Sandra, commenting on the figures, said,
“The poor economic situation here and in the EU took its toll, especially in the export sectors. With major EU nations in such dire financial situations, it is understandable that our export market would fall.
The construction industry fell by 41.8% in the period of 2009-10. The manufacturing sector fell by 15.3% in the same period.
On the other hand, income from the High Export Potential Group increased by 6.5% in the one year period, which saw a growth rate of 48.9% from 2006.
Computer & Related Activities had the largest share of the export market within that group and had the largest annual increase. This is great news and I hope to see this trend continuing. There has been great work done recently promoting Computer& Related Activities and further Research and Development into that market.”
Sandra continued,
“These statistics are from 2010, and it is important to note there has been much work done since then, including the recent success of Bombardier Belfast, who secured a multi-billion pound deal for the production of aircraft. This was followed by Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, confirming that Ballymena coach building company, Wrightbus, has been promised another order of buses for London, having successfully trialled 8 buses in the city. These have been great achievements for those businesses, and for Northern Ireland, and come following export sales to the Gulf States reaching £217m and to India, £22.3m, in 2011.
As a country, we need promote our export industry to countries outside our usual export bases in the Republic of Ireland, the rest of the UK and the EU. There is huge export potential in the emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China, and we need to take advantage of that by continuing to promote ourselves and our products and services to them and other non-EU nations.
Given the low absolute volume of sales to the BRICs (£123 million in 2010), the Economic Strategy’s commitment to raise exports by 60% by 2014/15 would only add about £80 million total sales; we should be challenging the Minister as to whether this is ambitious enough. This is especially true following the recent trade missions undertaken by the First and deputy First Minister to India and China as well as the Enterprise Minister to the Kurdistan region.”