As per the Central Statistics Office, Ireland imported over 60 per cent of its clothing and apparels from Asia in 2019 - with almost 70 million women's T-shirts and jumpers being bought from the continent. Ireland imported more than 56 million ladies’ and girls’ T-shirts and over 30 million ladies’ and girls’ jumpers in 2019. Of these, 46 million and 23 million respectively were imported from Asia.

Almost €57 billion of goods were imported from Europe, of which more than €20billion came from the UK, our largest import partner. Asia accounted for €17.4 billion of Irish exports in 2019 - making it a larger export destination than any country in Europe, with €8.2 billion exported to China.

Ireland's largest trading partners in Asia are China and Japan, while it exported €1.7 billion to Africa and €700 million to South America in 2019. Almost a third, or €49billion worth, of all its exports in 2019 were medical and pharmaceutical products.