DUBLIN, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Ireland's foreign trade surplus reached 28 billion euros (31.78 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of this year, up nearly 23 percent compared with the same period last year, according to the statistics released by the country's national statistics bureau CSO on Wednesday.

According to the CSO, Ireland exported a total of 69.2 billion euros of goods in the January-June period of this year, up 9.52 percent over a year ago, while its imports in the same period edged up by 2 percent to reach 41.17 billion euros.

The United States was the largest destination of the Irish exported goods, with exports to the market reaching 19.48 billion euros in the first six months, followed by Belgium (8.89 billion euros) and Britain (7.71 billion euros).

Britain was the largest source of the Irish imported goods, with imports from the country reaching 9.35 billion euros in the first half of this year, followed by the United States (6.78 billion euros) and Germany (5.39 billion euros).

During the period, Ireland exported 34.28 billion euros of goods to the European Union (EU), accounting for nearly half of its total exports while its imports from the EU stood at 25.73 billion euros, accounting for nearly 63 percent of the country's total imports.

Of all the goods exported by Ireland in the first half of this year, chemicals and related products accounted for 43.29 billion euros, ranking in the first place in terms of its value, followed by machinery and transport equipment (8.92 billion euros) and miscellaneous manufactured articles (7.69 billion euros).

Of all the goods imported, machinery and transport equipment accounted for 15.88 billion euros, ranking in the first place in terms of its value, followed by chemicals and related products (10.15 billion euros) and miscellaneous manufactured articles (3.98 billion euros).

Commenting on the latest figures, Alan McQuaid, an economist with local consulting company Merrion Fixed Income, said: "while there are a lot of uncertainties regarding the outlook of the Irish external trade, we are still anticipating another strong performance this year with a record surplus of around 48 billion euros forecast, up from 43.5 billion euros in 2017. Overall export volume growth of 5.5 percent is projected for 2018 as against 7.8 percent last year." (1 euro = 1.135 U.S. dollars)