To ease unemployment, Dublin aggressively courts
foreign investors and recently created a new industrial development
agency to aid small indigenous firms. Government assistance is
constrained by Dublin's continuing deficit reduction measures.

GDP: purchasing power parity - $54.6 billion (1995 est.)

GDP real growth rate: 7% (1995 est.)

GDP per capita: $15,400 (1995 est.)

GDP composition by sector:
agriculture: 6.8%
industry: 35.3%
services: 57.9% (1994)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 2.8% (1995 est.)

Labor force: 1.37 million
by occupation: services 57.0%, manufacturing and construction 28%,
agriculture, forestry, and fishing 13.5%, energy and mining 1.5%
(1992)

Unemployment rate: 13.5% (1995 est.)

Budget:
revenues: $19.3 billion
expenditures: $20.3 billion, including capital expenditures of $3.6
billion (1994)

Industries: food products, brewing, textiles, clothing, chemicals,
pharmaceuticals, machinery, transportation equipment, glass and
crystal

Industrial production growth rate: 8.9% (1995 est.)

Electricity:
capacity: 3,930,000 kW
production: 14.9 billion kWh
consumption per capita: 3,938 kWh (1993)

Agriculture: turnips, barley, potatoes, sugar beets, wheat; meat
and dairy products

Illicit drugs: transshipment point for hashish from North Africa
to the UK and Netherlands

Exports: $29.9 billion (f.o.b., 1994)
commodities: chemicals, data processing equipment, industrial
machinery, live animals, animal products
partners: EU 73% (UK 27%, Germany 14%, France 9%), US 9%

Imports: $25.3 billion (c.i.f., 1994)
commodities: food, animal feed, data processing equipment, petroleum
and petroleum products, machinery, textiles, clothing
partners: EU 58% (UK 36%, Germany 7%, France 4%), US 18%

External debt: $19.5 billion (1994 est.)

Economic aid:
donor: ODA, $81 million (1993)

Currency: 1 Irish pound (LIr) = 100 pence

Exchange rates: Irish pounds (LIr) per US$1 - 0.6315 (January
1996), 0.6235 (1995), 0.6676 (1994), 0.6816 (1993), 0.5864 (1992),
0.6190 (1991)

Fiscal year: calendar year

Transportation
--------------

Railways:
total: 1,944 km
broad gauge: 1,944 km 1.600-m gauge (37 km electrified; 485 km
double track) (1995)

Highways:
total: 92,327 km
paved: 86,787 km (including 32 km of expressways)
unpaved: 5,540 km (1992 est.)

Waterways: limited for commercial traffic

Pipelines: natur