IMF Data Map - An irish Perspective - Mazars - Ireland

While the IMF health-checks for the global economy, its components, the public finances and the banking system make for gloomy reading. What do they say about Ireland?

Well here is one picture – real GDP annual percentage change since 1980 and projections for same out to 2016. For comparative purposes we have also included chartings for emerging and developing economies, the advanced market economies and the world economy overall. One point that comes through is how volatile is the Irish pattern of growth since 1980 and how at times, exceptional is the Irish performance (for example in the late ‘80s and again, sustainedly if also jaggedly, from circa 1994 to about 2001) – compared to the others charted.

A second point that shows through is the severity of the slump Ireland underwent during the global financial crisis (GFC). As to the forecast out to 2016: here we see strong recovery from Ireland and being sustained – again against trends, with all else (world, industrial countries, emerging markets) flat-lining.  The growth rate though does still remain modest, well below the EMs and the world trend – and of course it is coming from a horrid base. And finally, that forecast is all based on one thing: that political solutions match economic needs.