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Top Trading Partners

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The USA was Ireland’s largest export market in 2020, with over €50 billion in exports. This accounted for 31% of the total value of exports. The second biggest export partner was Belgium, with almost €18 billion of exports, closely followed Germany with over €17.5 billion.

Medical and pharmaceutical products and organic chemicals comprised €37 billion, or 73% of the total exports to the USA in 2020.

The UK and China complete the list of the remaining top 5 export markets.

X-axis labelValue of Exports
USA50.5358435100001
Belgium17.8826528389402
Germany17.5781516823345
UK14.6497669697808
China10.323924721
Netherlands8.59891804499727
France5.44428377242536
Italy4.68011492242183
Japan3.47292893900001
Switzerland3.22123458199999
Table 2.1 Top ten exporting partners 2020
RankCountry€million% of total exports
1USA50,53631
2Belgium17,88311
3Germany17,57811
4UK14,6509
5China10,3246
6Netherlands8,5995
7France5,4443
8Italy4,6803
9Japan3,4732
10Switzerland3,2212
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The UK was the biggest source of imports in 2020, with imports of €20 billion. 

Imports of mineral fuels, petroleum and related materials were €1.8 billion. Imports of food and beverages from the UK were €4.3 billion in value, and imports of machinery and transport equipment were €4.5 billion.

There were €13.5 billion of imports from the USA in 2020, including imports of chemicals and related goods of €3.7 billion, and imports of machinery and transport equipment to the value of €6.6 billion.

France, Germany and China made up the remaining top 5 import partners.

X-axis labelValue of Imports
UK20.1378391429329
USA13.4781456181116
France9.90616523707557
Germany7.14443458019403
China6.54668044311656
Switzerland4.13976418955472
Netherlands3.12634696092122
Belgium1.91795279387025
Italy1.78065294279683
Spain1.70780259714616
Table 2.2 Top ten importing partners 2020
RankCountry€million% of total imports
1UK20,13823
2USA13,47815
3France9,90611
4Germany7,1448
5China6,5478
6Switzerland4,1405
7Netherlands3,1264
8Belgium1,9182
9Italy1,7812
10Spain1,7082

Go to Trade Balance