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The ongoing disruption to global travel and a 9% drop in Irish food and drink exports in May has led to Bord Bia putting in place a series of virtual trade missions for the autumn.
As with several recent trade missions, the focus is on markets outside the EU, with particular attention on Asian markets.
The first virtual mission will focus on targeting 150 trade buyers from Vietnam, South Korea, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. This will be followed by a series of virtual engagements also involving the Department of Agriculture, with key customers of Irish food and drink across all major export markets attending.
There have been mixed fortunes for the two largest sectors
The latest push for export markets comes as the impact of Brexit looms closer and May export figures show a decline in the food and drink sector of 2% in the first five months of 2020 and a monthly decline in May of 9% compared with May 2019.
There have been mixed fortunes for the two largest sectors.
Dairy exports recorded a strong growth to €2.05bn, up 7.1% on the same period in 2018.
There was a drop in dairy exports to the UK of 17.7% largely caused by a fall in cheese exports
Sales to the EU were up 5.5%, while sales to Asia were up 9.7% and there was a particularly strong performance in sales to the US, which were up 18.6% despite increased import tariffs by the US imposed because of the aviation dispute between Boeing and Airbus. There was a drop in dairy exports to the UK of 17.7% largely caused by a fall in cheese exports.
Pigmeat exports also had a strong increase in the first five months of 2020, up 22% to €245m.
However, beef exports to Ireland’s main markets were down, dropping 16% in the EU and falling 11% in the UK.
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