The Irish Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton announced this week that Irish entrepreneurs have recorded a record Irish trade surplus in June of over 4 billion Euro.

The Irish trade surplus actually increased by 8% which is the highest surplus recorded in the history of the state.

In a report quoted in Finfacts.ie this week Minister Bruton said: 'I am delighted that the recent good news on the export front is continuing. It is indeed heartening to know that despite the turbulent international markets into which we are exporting, our exports are continuing to perform to an extremely high level.

I have said repeatedly that my priorities are to get our costs down, get credit to good businesses and to support the innovation and research and development agenda. These trade figures show what our entrepreneurs can achieve when the conditions are right and only encourage me further to pursue this agenda so that we can continue to support export-led growth and recovery.'
 
Bruton added that exports to the United States have increased by 11.8% to 9.08 billion Euro. He added that the continuing importance of the US market to Irish entrepreneurs will be underpinned when he leads a trade mission there in mid September.

Exports to the EU rose by 4.2% to 22.336 billion Euro in the first five months of 2011.
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Exports to Brazil have increased by over 9% to  112 million Euro and exports to India, (where Minister Bruton led a successful trade mission earlier this year) have grown by 30% to 83 million Euro. Exports to South Korea have also increased by 5.3% to 141 million Euro.



The Minister concluded: 'These are very welcome trends and show that Irish business is rising to the challenge of seeking out new markets and winning new business. These figures emphasize both the importance of trade to the economy and its potential to be a significant contributor to recovery.'