WorldCity, Annual Report: No. 7 Ireland- The right prescription | Connecting Local Business Leaders To The Global Economy

Annual Report: No. 7 Ireland- The right prescription

June 18th, 2006

Pharmaceuticals, tech products led lopsided trade with the Celtic Tiger.

Georgia is awash with imports from Ireland, products of the nation’s vibrant pharmaceutical and technology sectors.

Georgia and Ireland exchanged $2.4 billion in goods last year, but the trade relationship was a lopsided one with $2.1 billion of the total coming from imports from Ireland.

Medicine was the top import from Ireland, rising 10 percent to total nearly $1.6 billion. According to government economic development agency Enterprise Ireland, nine of the world’s top pharmaceutical companies have manufacturing operations in Ireland.

What has attracted companies like Wyeth BioPharma, Pfizer and Bristol-Meyers Squibb to Ireland are government incentives, significant investment in bioscience research and a prepared workforce, according to Enterprise Ireland Vice President Tom Cusack in New York. Corporate tax rates, for example, are 12.5 percent, half of what is charged in many other European countries.

Other companies in Ireland include Abbott Laboratories, Gilead Sciences, Allergan, Boston Scientific, Essilor and Johnson & Johnson. Dublin and Galway house major biotechnology clusters, as well as 25 drug-manufacturing plants. Ireland also exports generics produced by homegrown companies Chanelle Medica, Trinity Biotech and Biotrin.

Computer and computer parts imports were also among the top five in 2005, a year that saw total imports rise by more than 13 percent. Georgia imported $119 million in computers, nearly flat from the year before, but saw its computer part imports soar more than 788 percent to end the year at $72 million.

Georgia also imported $99 million in fiber optics, an 18 percent decline from 2004.

Ireland’s technology sector erupted in the mid-1990s when multinationals entered the small country. By 2005, the Irish software industry had more than 900 companies exporting nearly $20 billion in goods and services annually.

Just as the country’s pharmaceutical hubs are in Dublin and western Ireland, the technology cluster is around Cork, at the southern tip of the island nation.

The Georgia-Ireland tech relationship has sparked investment in the Peach State, which has 12 Irish-owned tech-related companies, ranging from software businesses to logistics to health care. They include Dublin-based Trintech Group, software developer Openet Telecom and Shenick Network Systems.

Georgia’s imports also included $24 million in regional jet parts. Most were turbines from Sifco Ireland in Cork, part of Cleveland-based Sifco Industries. The imports were up 23 percent from 2004 levels.

Enterprise Ireland projects that trade will continue to grow if U.S. currency rates remain favorable for Irish companies shipping to the United States.

As far as Georgia’s $317 million in exports to the Ireland, computer parts were the single biggest item. Georgia shipped $124 million in computer parts, up 4.5 percent from 2004. It also sent $25 million in computers to Ireland, a slight drop from 2004.