Full coverage: Trade

Ireland today is not the same country that joined the EEC in 1973, and trade with the continent hardly qualifies as imports and exports anymore. The food and climate policy debate should reflect this.

As trade routes between Ireland and the continent are redrawn to avoid Britain, France has never felt closer – and its modernising economy is attracting a growing volume of business to and from this island. Thomas Hubert reports from Paris.

Since launching in 2021, Kwayga's subscription service that matches buyers and sellers in the food sector has listed 50,000 suppliers on its platform and reached 50 countries. Co-founder Mike McGrath talks about the business model, supply chain disruption and the future.

The UK and the EU remain at loggerheads over how to manage trade around Northern Ireland after Brexit, yet current issues were first raised four years ago and solutions agreed in 2019. In his book, the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier explains how we came to this, but also reveals his personal outlook on Ireland, partition and why peace was his top priority.

The trade agreement between the EU and the UK is just days old, and supply chains are already facing disruption even as freight traffic remains low following holidays and pre-Brexit stockpiling. And this is just the start.

Some of the experts most directly involved in building a UK external trade administration from the ground up took questions from Irish businesses on Monday, detailing the progress they have made with two months to go – and the gaping holes remaining to be filled for exporters and importers trading between Ireland and the UK.

With Phil Hogan gone, the focus now turns to the position he has vacated. Here is why the trade commissioner job matters, and why an Irish candidate is likely to replace Hogan.

As Ireland haggles about greenhouse gas targets, New Zealand implements new climate legislation accommodating its livestock industry – one of many common interests with Ireland. Brad Burgess, the first Kiwi ambassador to Dublin, discusses growing business links and hopes of a trade deal.

The first stumbling block in Brexit negotiations starting today is fisheries, illustrating a deeper rift between the EU and the UK on how to approach an unprecedented large-scale, close-range free trade agreement.

Now confined to his apartment complex in Beijing, Ian Lahiffe observes the lasting impact of the Covid-19 epidemic on China's social, political and economic structures – and the ramifications for trade and investment in Ireland and elsewhere.