The latest data produced by the CSO show that in the first half of this year, economy-wide productivity growth was negative. This partly reflects weaker productivity growth in manufacturing and also partly the changing composition of Irish output growth towards a higher concentration of output in services and construction – which are generally associated with quite low productivity.
Japanese firms are said to be slow to localize business lines in emerging economies. When I visited rapidly developing inland China last year, I saw some U.S. and European firms successfully advancing quickly into the cities of Chongqing and Chengdu and localizing their business models, whereas there were only a few Japanese firms that were aggressive in localizing their operations.