Ireland is a small open economy that relies on the international trade in order to export their products and services so as to achieve long term growth that is sustainable. Ireland has lured several investments from other countries hence boosting its economic performance. This creates jobs and increases the technical, marketing and managerial skills in the labor force. The government intervention is necessary in order to relieve the effects of the regulations, high taxes and the ever increasing budget deficits. The integration of Ireland into the European Union has impact on the role played by the regulators. The Union has led to free markets as people, goods and services move uninterrupted across member states. This article, therefore, discusses the economy of Ireland, regulatory and open markets.
The productivity, economic growth and innovation drive the competitive policy. High competition makes the Irish firms to be more equipped to fight off this competition from the international firms which is beneficial to the consumers. Perpetual improvement is necessary in the economic regulations and solves the challenges raised by the competitive authority’s reviews in Ireland. The competitive position of Ireland continues to improve every year due to the dwindling energy cost and the weak euro. In order to address the issues of regulation and framework, careful planning and consultations with the key stakeholders is important. It is crucial to identify the major constraints and start the process of developing the solutions at the earliest time possible.
The freedom of business is a key indicator of efficiency and reliability of the regulations in business by the government. Every country has a business freedom rank that is between zero and one hundred. These are determined using a combination of factors that include procedures, time, cost and minimum capital required to start a business. Other factors are the procedure, time, cost for obtaining a licensing and the cost for obtaining a business license. The average values of all these factors are obtained after ranking each on the scale of zero to one hundred. Ireland for instance, has a business freedom of 79.6, monetary freedom of 85.5 and the labor freedom of 72.1. This shows that the regulatory frameworks help promote the formation of business and there is no minimum capital required for one to start a business in Ireland. The labor market in Ireland is highly flexible and the cost of labor is moderate. There was an amazing economic recovery in 2015 however; the coalition government reforms on post economic crisis even delaying the plan to subsidy on tap water nationwide a move that was unpopular.
Trade freedom is the measure of the degree of tariff and the non-tariff barriers which influence the exports and imports in a country. All the member states of the European Union have one percent tariff rate on average. Certain imports always face tariffs and the average weighted tariff is calculated using the weights of the specific tariff based on import share for the specific goods. Ireland enters into trade agreements with other countries such as Japan and United States among others. The Irish laws provide for equal treatment of both domestic and foreign investors. There has been restructuring and recapitalization in the banking sector as banks are still owned by the government although there has been some divestment. Ireland has trade freedom of 88, investment freedom of 90 and financial freedom of 70.
In conclusion, the economy of Ireland has been on the exponential growth since its recovery from the 2008 economic crisis. The regulatory framework of Ireland enhances competitiveness although reforms are necessary in order to solve pertinent issues.
