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Good news for Shoppers

Posted Saturday, October 24, 2009

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Pound Down

The plunging pound has really hurt businesses in Moville.

It has been getting more and more expensive for visitors from the North and elsewhere to come here.

It hit some of the festivals during the summer and local businesses have had a bad year.

It's hit the Foyle Ferry too.

Sterling

Sterling used to trade in the range of €1.40 to €1.50 most of the time.

Recently it has been trading in the €1.10 to €1.20 range which has been very bad for business and tourism here.

However, it looks as if it is going to get worse.

Last week the UK was expecting to issue figures showing that the recession was over.

It was predicted that the econmy would have grown during the third quarter of the year by about 0.2%.

However, when the figures came out they showed that the economy in the UK had shrunk by a further 0.4% making a 5.9% fall since the recession started.

If Ireland was hoping that a UK coming put of recession would boost Ireland's trade they were disappointed.

Further Fall

However, market analysts are now predicting that the pound will fall to around parity with the Euro so that you just get one pound sterling for one Euro.

That will be a major boost for those who shop in Derry.

In fact it will be a major boost for those who will be looking to do their Christmas shopping there.

However, it will be very bad news for those who have businesses and shops in Moville.

€3.80 a pint in the pubs is going to look very expensive for those people who normally pay £2.20 a pint in Derry.

When the pound and Euro hit parity that will make it more than 50% dearer here than in the north.

They'll be feeling like we do when we go to Dublin.

Northern Workers

And of course, it will hit hard those who earn their money in sterling and spend it in Euros.

They will have lost about 30% of their pay recently.

At some stage this will all be over.

However, it looks like it's going to get a little worse yet before it gets better.