Five companies were responsible for 44% of Irish good exports in value terms in 2022, new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show.

While those five enterprises exported €91.5bn in goods to other countries, the remaining 11,764 Irish-based exporters made international goods sales of nearly €116.5m combined.

Large enterprises with over 250 employees were responsible for 80% of the total value of goods exports while the top 10 largest businesses accounted for 57%.

There were 48,737 small and medium-sized enterprises that imported goods in 2022, and the value of their imports was €72bn.

"Foreign owned enterprises accounted for 87% of total exports and 73% of imports by value. However, in terms of the number of enterprises, just 18% of exporters and 8% of importers were foreign owned," said CSO statistician Ciarán Counihan.

"Ireland exported more than €199bn worth of goods in 2022, and €173bn of that was exported by foreign-owned enterprises. 

"There were 11,769 enterprises that exported goods over the value of €1,000 in 2022.  Of these, 9,670 enterprises were Irish-owned, and 2,099 were foreign-owned."

More than 8,000 enterprises exported to the UK compared to 36,000 companies that imported goods from the UK.

Almost a third of importing enterprises sourced their goods from one countries, and three-quarters had five or fewer partner countries. There were 1,054 exporting enterprises with 10 or more partner countries, and they exported a combined €175bn of goods in 2022.

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