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Services Trade by Enterprise Characteristics 2016

Introduction

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This publication examines the characteristics of enterprises in Ireland which contribute to trade in services. It explores the size, ownership and economic activity of the enterprises trading in service exports and imports. The Balance of Payments (BOP) enterprise characteristics were supplemented by linking BOP statistics to Business statistics using a common enterprise identifier. The data used in this study relate to reference year 2016.

While enterprise characteristics in principle covers all service categories, not all services categories can be broken down by enterprise size due to their specific nature. These limitations concern travel, parts of financial services and government services which are not surveyed by BOP and therefore cannot be attributed to a single enterprise. Similar limitations apply to quarterly services estimates which are not attributed to a single enterprise. These quarterly estimates are included for survey non-coverage and for annual returns (from enterprises with low trade volumes).

	Service Imports	Service Exports
Total	198.809815	135.075566
Large	147.633528	72.135645
Medium	6.62019	13.435466
Small	20.444217	22.296025
Unknown	24.11188	27.208431

Key findings

Large enterprises (with over 250 employees) made up €72bn (53%) of total service exports (€135bn) in 2016 and the five largest exporting enterprises accounted for €56bn (42%) of the total.
Large enterprises made up €148bn (74%) of total service imports (€199bn) in 2016 and the five largest importers accounted for €82bn (41%) of the total. See Figure 1.1.
The information and communication sector (J) was the largest export sector which exported €59bn (44%) of total service exports
The manufacturing sector (C) represented the largest import sector which imported €98bn (49%) of total service imports. See Table 4.1 & Figure 4.1.
Foreign controlled enterprises dominated both service exports and imports in 2016, they exported €100bn (74%) and imported €162bn (81%) of total services. The remaining €35bn (26%) of service exports and €37bn (19%) of service imports were provided by domestic enterprises. See Figure 5.1.
All transport and travel services were accounted for by domestic enterprises. Figure 5.4 & 5.5
All computer services exports, €59bn in 2016, were provided by foreign controlled enterprises.

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CSO statistical release, 01 July 2019, 11am

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Services Trade by Enterprise Characteristics 2016