Output and Value Added by Activity 2023

This publication mirrors the CSO publication Annual National Accounts 2023 (ANA) which splits the economy into 'Foreign-owned MNE dominated' and 'Other' sectors. Foreign-owned Multinational Enterprise (MNE) dominated sectors occur where MNE turnover on average exceeds 85% of the sector total. These 'Foreign-owned MNE dominated' sectors contain NACE 19, 20, 21, 26, 31-32, 58, 61 and 62-63.

In 2023 total GVA was €484,190 million at current basic prices. The 2023 ‘Foreign-owned MNE dominated’ GVA was €223,853 million or 46.2% of the total. The composition of sectors will change by type of ownership over time. To allow for ease of comparability over the time-series, the NACE code composition of the two groups has been maintained over the time-series.

Table 5.2 shows the percentage value change on the previous year for the 2012-2023 time-series of Output, Intermediate Consumption and GVA for 'Foreign-owned MNE dominated' and 'Other' sectors. The ‘Other’ GVA, though showing a smaller average annual GVA value increase over the period (6.8%) than the ‘Foreign-owned MNE dominated’ (19.4%), is greater than EU 27 (3.6%) and Euro area 20 averages (3.4%). See also Figure 5.2.

Table 5.3 shows the percentage composition of the 2012-2023 time-series of Output, Intermediate Consumption and GVA for 'Foreign-owned MNE dominated' and 'Other' sectors, which given the higher annual average change for the ‘Foreign-owned MNE dominated’ sectors has increased to almost half of the total in 2023. These data are also displayed in Figure 5.1.

Table 5.4 shows the ratio of Output to GVA in ‘Foreign-owned MNE dominated’ and ‘Other’ sectors over the 2012-2023 period. This shows that the ratio in the ‘Foreign-owned MNE dominated’ sectors has moved towards the ‘Other’ sectors ratio, particularly since the 2015 ‘level shift’. The consistency of the ratios for the 'Other' sectors over the period is striking.

Emerging trends in globalised economies have been towards cross-border production arrangements. These include (a) goods sent abroad for further processing in another economy, (b) goods received from abroad for processing in Ireland, or (c) goods purchased abroad and further processed abroad. These arrangements are often termed ‘processing abroad', 'contract manufacturing', and 'factoryless production'. An export or import as a result of these arrangements is only recorded for Balance of Payment purposes (and consequently for National Accounts purposes) when a change of ownership occurs. In Ireland, these exports and imports of goods are significant, particularly in recent years. However they are a minority of activity compared with the total activity of the Foreign-owned MNE dominated sectors or the Manufacturing sectors.

Table 5.5 shows the scale of goods for processing exports relative to total Output in addition to the Output of both the Foreign-owned MNE dominated and Manufacturing sectors. These data are sourced from Table 2.1 of the CSO's International Accounts Q2 2024 release from Balance of Payments. See the following Balance of Payments explanatory note for further details: Explaining Goods Exports and Imports.