New research from Enterprise Ireland has found that a third of exporting firms in Ireland have seen sales fall so far this year. To compound worries, a further 85% of the 728 firms surveyed said they also expect Brexit to add up to 10% to their operational costs.

However, although the overall picture looks bleak, certain sectors including digital and life sciences have seen sales growth of 30%.

And almost six in 10 of the companies questioned said they still expect their exports to grow and over 80% are planning to hire more staff next year.

CEO of Enterprise Ireland, Julie Sinnamon commented on the survey results that: “Irish exporters came into 2019 from a position of strength recording exports of more than €25bn in 2019.”

Read more: Businesses still have many unanswered questions over Brexit with less than 13 weeks to go

“However, 2020 has proven to be very challenging so far. While our clients have largely succeeded in retaining customers across the world, we know that customer contracts have declined by 10%, compared to last year.”

Last month, Go Exporting presented a free webinar alongside Enterprise Ireland discussing the opportunities within UK local authorities for Irish exporters. You can watch that in full below: