Exports plummet in January

Exports, considered to be the prime motor of economic growth, continued their sharp decline last January with a drop of 37 per cent over the same month last year.

The National Statistics Office said the value of exports dropped by €67.4 million, down from €180 million in January 2008 to €112.6 million this year. Much of the decline came from the electrical machinery sector. The value of exports in this sector was €53.2 million last January, a drop of €30.7 million over the same period last year.

The sector to experience the second largest drop was that of pharmaceutical products, down from an export value of €16.2 million in January 2008 to €9.9 million this year.

The news comes after official statistics confirmed that the economy went into a recession in the second half of 2008. Economic growth for the whole of 2008 reached 1.6 per cent which, although positive, was still two percentage points below the previous year and only half of what the government forecast in the last budget.

The contraction in the third and fourth quarters came after growth in the first half of the year.