The value of Irish food and live animals exports in 2023 stood at over €14.5 billion, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
This marks a slight drop of 1.2% when compared to the 2022 figure of €14.76 billion.
The value of meat and meat preparation exports dropped from €4.8 billion to €4.6 billion.
Exports of dairy products and birds’ eggs were worth just over €4 billion, down from €4.3 billion in the previous year.
The data shows that value of cereal and cereal preparation exports increased from €705 million to €769 million, while live animal exports grew in value from €605 million in 2022 to €782 million last year.
Analysis by the national statistical office also highlights the key destinations for food and live animal exports from Ireland.
Last year, exports of food and live animals to Britain were worth €3.9 billion (2022: €3.87 billion), while for Northern Ireland such exports rose from €1.69 billion to €1.75 billion.
Over €5.1 billion worth of food and live animals was exported to other EU countries (down from €5.4 billion in 2022), while the exports to the US stood at €774 million.
China was the destination for €566 million worth of exports of food and live animals in 2023 and there was also more than €2.3 billion of similar exports to “the rest of world” (2022: €2.5 billion).
Imports
The CSO said that imports of food and live animals to Ireland increased in value last year to just over €10 billion (2022: €9.5 billion).
There was a slight increase in the value of imports of meat and meat preparations to €1.17 billion and while the value of dairy products and birds’ eggs imports dropped by €99 million to just over €1 billion.
Imports of cereal and cereal preparation were up slightly to €1.7 billion, while imports of vegetables and fruit rose €237 million to €1.68 billion.
In 2023, imports of food and live animals from Britain rose in value from €2.2 billion to €2.4 billion, while for Northern Ireland such imports dropped in value by around €40 million to €1.3 billion.
Over €4.1 billion worth of food and live animals was exported to other EU countries (up from €3.6 billion in 2022), while the exports to the US stood at €422 million.
Ireland imported food and live animals worth €118 million from China, and such imports from “the rest of world” were valued at €1.57 billion.
CSO
Commenting on the Goods Exports and Imports December 2023 report, Ciarán Counihan, statistician in the CSO international trade in goods division, said:
“In 2023, Ireland’s exports of goods were €197 billion, a decrease of more than €11 billion when compared with 2022. Exports in 2023 were still more than €30 billion higher than in 2021.
“Imports of goods in 2023 were more than €139 billion, €1.5 billion lower than the 2022 level, but almost €36 billion higher than in 2021.
“The unadjusted exports for December 2023 were valued at €13.9 billion, a decrease of €1.4 billion on December 2022. Seasonally adjusted exports were €15.7 billion in December 2023.
“In December 2023, unadjusted imports were valued at almost €12 billion. When seasonally adjusted, imports of goods fell by €1.7 billion when compared with November 2023.”