New Industry for Ireland

In Dublin last week the Borden Co. announced that it has chosen a site in County Cork in the heart of Ireland's dairy country to build the biggest dry-milk plant it has ever constructed outside the U.S. The new plant, scheduled for completion next May, will cost $2,240,000, employ 50, and produce about 9,000,000 lbs. of dry whole-milk powder a year, chiefly for export to South America.

The plant is the newest example of the Irish government's successful campaign to lure in foreign industries to bolster the island's faltering economy. Principally agricultural, Ireland has provided so few jobs that each year as many as 40,000 Irishmen immigrate, mainly to the U.S. and Canada, to find work. Two years ago, the government put together an appealing package. To the foreign industrialist, it grants a ten-year tax exemption on export profits and offers to pay the full cost of training the workers (average wage: $29 for a 44-hr, week), plus 50% of the cost of the machinery and up to one-half of the cost of building a plant. In addition, it will pay the full cost of building plants in the underdeveloped western counties. To companies locating plants in the customs-free port in Shannon, it gives a tax holiday on export profits until 1983.

Under the incentive program, 51 new factories turning out products ranging from transistor radios to giant shipyard cranes have been built for foreign firms in Ireland. For their share, foreign firms have invested about $84 million in plants and machinery. The plants have directly created 10,000 new jobs, indirectly another 10,000. Nearly one-quarter of the plants belong to West German firms, which, faced with a labor shortage at home, have turned to Ireland for a bountiful supply of workers. Besides Borden, twelve other U.S. firms, including Brunswick Corp., Standard Pressed Steel (electronic components) and Hallmark, have set up plants in Ireland. Nearly all the products from Irish plants are admitted duty-free to Great Britain, receive preferential treatment from Commonwealth nations.

The new industry has given Ireland's economy a big boost. After years of stagnation, the gross national product is now growing at an annual rate of 3.5%. Exports, which amounted to only $310 million in 1955, are expected to pass the $450 million mark this year. The increase in industrial exports has narrowed Ireland's trade gap from $271 million in 1955 to an anticipated $224 million for 1960. As the pace of industrialization quickens, the Irish hope to close the trade gap entirely.

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