The National Competitiveness Council (NCC) launched its Costs of Doing Business in Ireland 2017 report on 1 June.

This report benchmarks the main business costs across over 70 indicators and focuses on areas where Irish enterprise costs are out of line in those in key competitor countries. The report concentrates on costs that are largely domestically determined such as labour, property, energy, water, waste, communications and business services, and considers both price levels, and changes in those levels (i.e. price inflation).

In terms of business costs, as a small open economy, dependent on exports and foreign investment as major drivers of growth, our relative cost competitiveness is a significant determinant of our overall competitiveness, and ultimately of our economic prosperity, employment and our standard of living.

The improved competitiveness of Ireland’s exporting sector has been one of Ireland’s greatest strengths in recent years and has been key to economic growth and job creation. It has been critical to the success of Irish based exporters, allowing them to maximise the opportunities arising from increases in global demand. Despite improvements in Irish cost competitiveness since the global economic and financial crisis, threats to continued economic success abound. While the Irish economy is experiencing rapid growth, the global economy is not proving as robust, with growth prospects curtailed by lower consumption, investment, trade and productivity levels. To protect the gains achieved to date, to further embed and sustain the recovery, and to ultimately spread the benefits of economic growth to all, we must continue to enhance all aspects of our competitiveness.

The full report is available here.