WASHINGON: An independent consultant’s report has today revealed that Shannon Foynes Port Company facilitates trade valued at €7.6bn per annum with an economic impact arising from this of €1.9bn – equivalent to 1% of Ireland’s entire GDP.
Launched in Foynes by Limerick based Minister of State for Tourism and Sport Patrick O’Donovan TD, the Economic Impact Assessment (EIA) compiled by strategic research consultants W2 Consulting also predicts that unprecedented levels of investment at the company’s ports and on the estuary over recent years are set to continue with €1.8bn in capital expenditure planned for the lifetime of the port authority’s masterplan, Vision 2041. In the first ever detailed analysis of the value of commercial marine activities on the estuary, the EIA – based on 2014 data – reveals projected capital expenditure levels by SFPC and its customers in the five years up to 2019 will reach €277m and support 3,372 jobs in the regional economy.
Of this, €38m alone was spent at Foynes, the company’s largest port, last year. The publication of the report follows a very significant rebound by SFPC from the lows of the downturn, with tonnage throughput at the company’s key ports of Foynes and Limerick now at peak levels of the boom from the last decade, despite a severe global contraction in the shipping industry. The report is based on 2014 primary research undertaken at SFPC and its associated businesses, as well as at 31 companies who currently use SFPC ports for import/export business and port service providers.
Welcoming the report, Minister O’Donovan said, “This report reaffirms the key role that SFPC and the estuary plays in the national economy. It will, no doubt, catch some people by surprise as the scale of that contribution was largely unknown until now, except to the port authority itself. Shannon Foynes Port Company is one of few companies that is now outpacing growth achieved at the height of the economic boom, with very substantial benefit to the region and nation.”
