IRELAND’s trade surplus fell by 9pc in January but the value of exports was up over the year.

The country’s export sector has been dented by the effect of the so-called pharmaceutical patent cliff – a fall-off in pharmaceutical sales as some blockbuster drugs here lose intellectual property, such as Irish-made cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor.

Preliminary figures for January from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show the value of exports was …

THE Revenue Commissioner has collected almost €1.5m a day in household charges after it threatened to haul homeowners before the courts for not paying up before the end of the month.

The surge in payments follows Revenue’s warning that it would impose tough penalties and interest and pursue enforcement action on property owners refusing to pay by the March 31 deadline.

Property owners continuing to defy the demand from the …

Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn plans to raise $2bn in a macro hedge fund, his firm, LSK & Partners, said today, as investors continue to back a low-risk and rapidly growing investment strategy.

The venture marks Strauss-Kahn’s first partnership with an asset manager for the DSK Global Investment Fund that will invest globally, Mohamad Zeidan, the firm’s chief operating officer told Reuters.

Strauss-Kahn will manage the fund with …

The majority of senior business leaders in Ireland are swapping their scalpels for bar graphs, as they move away from cost-cutting in favour of promoting future growth, according to a new survey of Irish firms.

The annual IndEx Partners survey of senior business leaders, entitled ‘Changing Times Leadership Survey’, queried over 200 companies in Ireland about leadership trends and found that more than six in ten business leaders are favouring …

Not a single company has contacted the tax authorities to say they have been affected by changes announced in the budget as part of Finance Minister Michael Noonan’s clampdown on international tax avoidance.

In October’s budget, Mr Noonan included a measure that required any company incorporated in Ireland to be tax resident either in this country or another jurisdiction.

Multinationals had been exploiting a loophole in the Irish tax system …

THE country’s bad bank – the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) – is set to sell-off property loans worth over €300m as demand rises.

The asset sale known as Project Spring and linked to developer Gerry Conlan, will be sold at a discount, news agency Bloomberg has reported.

In February, the bank said it would sell property portfolios worth €250m or more every quarter of this year.

These assets include …

Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Satya Nadella may unveil an iPad version of the company’s Office software suite on March 27, a source familiar with the event told Reuters, and use his first big press appearance to launch the company’s most profitable product in a version compatible with Apple Inc’s popular tablet.

Nadella, who replaced longtime CEO Steve Ballmer earlier this year, will address the media and industry executives in San …

Bank of Ireland has become the first Irish bank to allow business customers make payments in Chinese yuan.

Until now, Irish companies have been unable to receive or make payments in this currency. The facility will allow Irish companies to protect themselves from currency fluctuations, the bank said. Irish exports to China have risen by over two-fifths in recent years – from €251m in 2010 to €354m in 2012. This …

Germany’s Constitutional Court confirmed on Tuesday the legality of the euro zone’s bailout fund, upholding a preliminary ruling from the height of the debt crisis in 2012 that gave an initial green light to the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

The court in Karlsruhe reiterated that the €700bn fund did not violate the rights of the Bundestag to decide on budgetary matters as long as the lower house of parliament had …