HALF of the Irish companies exporting to the British market have budgeted for a pound sterling exchange rate of 103p or more for 1996, according to a poll carried out for AIB Corporate and Commercial Treasury.

AIB Treasury has forecast that the exchange rate will rise above 104p by the end of 1996. Keeping the degree of appreciation to a "tolerable" level may require some "fine tuning" by the Central Bank, it says in its Monthly Market Focus.

Some of the competitiveness losses for indigenous industry could be reduced by a sharper focus on their needs in the 1996 Budget than "was evident in the 1995 Budget", says AIB.