Madam, - Conor O'Clery's report on foreign direct investment in the United States (Business, May 19th) is fascinating not only in its content but also in its implications. Ireland is the world's ninth largest source of foreign direct investment in the United States, ahead of larger EU economies such as Spain and Italy. Despite the huge difference in the sizes of our respective economies the relationship between the United States and Ireland is in every sense a vibrant, two-way relationship. It is not, of course, an equal one, nor can it be.
Europe provided nearly three quarters of all foreign direct investment to the United States in the 1990s. European investment was central to "one of the most explosive periods of inward foreign investment in US history", according to a specialist in transatlantic relations at Johns Hopkins University. While this means European firms and European economies are more exposed than ever to the fortunes of the US, it is evident that the US depends substantially on continuing European direct investment. The relationship, in this respect at least, is not so unequal as some may think it to be, particularly if we consider, for instance, that European investment in Texas alone exceeds all US investment in Japan. It is noteworthy in this context that Germany and France - "old Europe" - rank fourth and fifth in global rankings of foreign direct investors in the United States.
Perhaps, after all, we really do need one another? - Your, etc.,
MICHAEL MEADE, Shantalla Road, Galway.