Ireland’s Fragile Recovery

John Murray Brown reviews the fiscal debate in this FT article.

4 replies on “Ireland’s Fragile Recovery”

The US isn’t ‘Ireland’s main export market’; exports to the Eurozone are almost double the value of exports to the UK, the second biggest market, followed by the US.

Eurozone data is somewhat exaggerated as data on transhipments via Belgium to ex-EMU countries is not available.

US firms are of course the dominant players in Irish trade and IDA Ireland’s unpublished 2011 target for net new jobs in the firms it supports, is 3,700 – – keeping us at the 1998 level in terms of FD1 direct jobs.

The FT says: This fragile growth prompted Eamon Gilmore, the foreign minister, to call Ireland “the recovery story of the eurozone.”

The spin works overseas as evidenced by the Oxford economists in the FT waxing eloquent about the balance of payments surplus. However, the trouble domestically is that when bullshit becomes a mantra, it’s accepted as fact.

We should realistically assume 0% GNP growth in the period 2011-2014.

The prospects for our 3 markets look problematic and even more so, to use Vice President Biden’s word, the ‘terrorists’ take charge in Washington DC in Jan 2013.

Iceland is the recovery story of Europe. I saw an interview with a leading figure in the city of London who was terrifed that the Irish people would realise what happened in Iceland, I.e they didn’t bailout banks and bondholders, the IMF still helped them and they are back lending on the markets. Actually Iceland is hardly ever in the media.

On the positive side Ireland has a young well educated population, some nice industries like medical devices, the IDA has great experience in attracting FDI, exports are ok everyone agrees that it has a stong basic economy and will recover. Of course the global marketplace is getting very competitive so these things can’t be taken for granted.
Unfortunatly bailing out our financial industry is a massive weight to carry in the future. Also we don’t have any control over monetary poilicy and currently not much control over fiscal policy either.
I suppose claiming Ireland will be the recovery story of the Eurozone is ok seeming as we are competing against Portugal and Greece with much weaker fundamentals and recovery will happen eventually.

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