China becomes Ireland's 3rd largest source of imports

DUBLIN, June 15 (Xinhua) -- China was Ireland's third largest source of imported goods in the first four months of this year, two places up compared with a year ago, according to official statistics released here on Wednesday.

In the first four months of this year, Ireland imported 3.79 billion euros (3.93 billion U.S. dollars) worth of goods from China, up nearly 57 percent compared with the same period of last year, the country's Central Statistics Office (CSO) said.

In terms of the value of goods imported by Ireland in the said period, China ranked behind the United Kingdom (UK, 8.84 billion euros) and the United States (5.97 billion euros).

The goods imported by Ireland from China in the January-April period represented 9.32 percent of the country's total imports in terms of their value, up 1.4 percentage points compared with a year ago.

Ireland imported 40.68 billion euros worth of goods in the said period, up 33.14 percent year-on-year.

In the January-April period, the goods exported by Ireland to China were valued at 4.18 billion euros, up nearly 19 percent year-on-year.

China was the fifth largest export market for Irish goods in the January-April period, ranking after the U.S. (23.08 billion euros), Germany (10.08 billion euros), the UK (6.93 billion euros) and Belgium (5.34 billion euros).

Ireland exported 70.37 billion euros worth of goods in the first four months of this year, up 33.68 percent year-on-year. (1 euro = 1.04 U.S. dollar)