HORSE SHOWCASE SET TO GENERATE €4M IN SALES - For lovers of all that is equine there is plenty on this week. As well as the Horse Show in Dublin, the new EQSPO event is being held in Kilkenny. It is hoped that over the next couple of days about €4m in sales will be generated over 18 months in businesses for do with the equine industry. EQSPO is Ireland's first big international buyer showcase for horse businesses. It is being organised by Enterprise Ireland, but it was thought up by Joe Connolly at Connolly Red Mills, a leading horse feed company. Buyers are here from 16 countries, as far away as Singapore, Qatar and China.
Joe Connolly, of Connolly Red Mills in Goresbridge, says the horse industry in Ireland is enormously important. About 20,000 people are employed in the industry, mainly in rural Ireland. Sales of horses outside of Ireland would amount to about 6,300 last year and were worth about €200m. Everything associated with horse feeding, clothing, saddles, horse boxes and supplements are all represented in Kilkenny this week. Mr Connolly predicts the event can generate €4m in sales and says the interest in the event was huge.
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NO MOVES EXPECTED FROM HOLIDAY-MODE ECB TODAY - The council members of the European Central Bank may as well have saved themselves the trip to Frankfurt. Nobody expects any move in interests rates after they meet at lunchtime, nor is any new measure for the banks or the economy expected to be introduced or mentioned.
Rossa White, chief economist at Davy, says today's meeting is expected to be a bit of an anti-climax. The ECB did not even hold meetings in August up to a few years ago because everyone was on holidays. He says there will be no move on rates as the economic picture is still very fragile - he predicts that rates will stay on hold for another nine months or so. The bank is also not expected to announce any more asset purchases or 'innovative measures'.
The economist says he believes that growth will not return to the euro zone until the final quarter of 2009, with more of a lift needed through exports to Asia. He says there are some 'signs of life' with recent surveys improving in particular.
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MORNING BRIEFS - Aviva, which owns Hibernian Insurance here, made a net profit of £747m sterling in the first half of 2009 after a loss a year earlier. CEO Andrew Moss said that the insurance company's life and pensions margins had improved. He added that the general insurance business has beaten the company's targets and its regulatory capital position has strengthened significantly,' he added.
*** Commerzbank, Germany's second biggest bank, today posted a sharp second-quarter net loss of €746m, mainly due to to the integration of Dresdner Bank. The result compared with a profit of €200m the same time last year, and was much worse than the forecast loss of €636m. In the first quarter of the year, Commerzbank, in which the German state owns a stake of 25%, had suffered a net loss of €861m.
*** The euro is trading at $1.4409 cents and 84.77 pence sterling.
