IRELAND achieved a record trade surplus last year, with exports rising to £27 billion for the first time. The figures provide further strong evidence of continuing economic growth following news yesterday that the workforce grew by 1,000 jobs a week to April last year.

The latest official figures show exports rose by 20 per cent in 1995 to a record £27 billion, in line with Central Bank predictions. The increase was mostly accounted for by a rise in high tech exports.

The trade surplus, or balance of exports over imports, climbed to over £7 billion, up 30 per cent from the 1994 level.

In a speech to the Dail committee, on public and finance affairs, the Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, said he expects export growth this year to be slower. "But a further healthy surplus on the current account of the balance of payments remains in prospect," he said.

The data from the Central Statistics Office is a combination of customs based non EU trade statistics, and estimates from the Intrastat Survey of Irish traders.

The data showed that the value of imports increased from £17.3 billion in 1994 to £20.2 billion in 1995. In the same period, the value of exports increased from £22.8 billion to £27.3 billion.

In December 1995 imports rose to £1.96 billion from £1.63 billion in 1994 on a seasonally adjusted basis, while exports rose to £2.49 billion from £2.12 billion a year earlier.

Between 1994 and 1995 import prices increased by 4.3 per cent, while export prices increased by 1.8 per cent. The corresponding volume increases were 11.8 per cent for imports and 17.8 per cent for exports.

The Minister for Trade and Tourism, Mr Kenny, welcomed the "outstanding national export performance". He pointed out that both the export and surplus figures are records by some distance. "The surplus is now greater than the combined surpluses for both 1991 and 1992," he said.

Among individual sectors, machinery and transport equipment showed a large rise to £8.52 billion from £6.72 billion a year earlier. Computers products accounted for much of this increase, with exports, in the office and data processing machines sector up £1.69 billion to £5.83 billion from £4.14 billion a year earlier.

Food and live animals showed a smaller increase from £1.41 billion in 1994 to £1.43 billion last year.

Beverages and tobacco and crude materials both showed falls. The former left to £189 million from £211 million, while crude materials fell to £397 million from £398 million a year earlier.

However, Goodbody stockbrokers sounded a note of cautions over too literal an interpretation of the CSO's monthly figures. It pointed out that in the manufacturing sector there are two very separate sectors. One section incorporates a small number of very, successful, rapidly expanding high tech companies which account for 60 per cent of manufacturing output. Many of these are export oriented.

This leaves the Irish economy vulnerable to a sharp slowdown in growth levels if the buoyancy in the high tech sector were to come to an abrupt end, the brokers warn.

A second problem, according to the brokers, is that attention tends to focus on this sector to the detriment of the traditional companies which are the main source of employment in manufacturing.