|
Economy
>
Economy
>
Overview
|
Economic activity is limited to the exploitation of natural resources, including petroleum, natural gas, fish, and seals.
|
The Dutch economy is the sixth-largest economy in the euro-zone and is noted for its stable industrial relations, moderate unemployment and inflation, a sizable trade surplus, and an important role as a European transportation hub. Industrial activity is predominantly in food processing, chemicals, petroleum refining, and electrical machinery. A highly mechanized agricultural sector employs only 2% of the labor force but provides large surpluses for the food-processing industry and for exports. The Netherlands, along with 11 of its EU partners, began circulating the euro currency on 1 January 2002. After 26 years of uninterrupted economic growth, the Dutch economy - highly dependent on an international financial sector and international trade - contracted by 3.5% in 2009 as a result of the global financial crisis. The Dutch financial sector suffered, due in part to the high exposure of some Dutch banks to U.S. mortgage-backed securities. In 2008, the government nationalized two banks and injected billions of dollars of capital into other financial institutions, to prevent further deterioration of a crucial sector. The government also sought to boost the domestic economy by accelerating infrastructure programs, offering corporate tax breaks for employers to retain workers, and expanding export credit facilities. The stimulus programs and bank bailouts, however, resulted in a government budget deficit of 5.3% of GDP in 2010 that contrasted sharply with a surplus of 0.7% in 2008. The government of Prime Minister Mark RUTTE began implementing fiscal consolidation measures in early 2011, mainly reductions in expenditures, which resulted in an improved budget deficit in 2011. In 2012 tax revenues dropped nearly 9%, GDP contracted, and the budget deficit deteriorated. Although jobless claims continued to grow, the unemployment rate remained relatively low at 6.8 percent.
|
|
|
Environment
>
Current issues
|
endangered marine species include walruses and whales; fragile ecosystem slow to change and slow to recover from disruptions or damage; thinning polar icepack
|
water pollution in the form of heavy metals, organic compounds, and nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates; air pollution from vehicles and refining activities; acid rain
|
|
|
Geography
>
Area
>
Comparative
|
slightly less than 1.5 times the size of the US
|
slightly less than twice the size of New Jersey
|
|
|
Geography
>
Area
>
Comparative to US places
|
slightly less than 1.5 times the size of the US
|
slightly less than twice the size of New Jersey
|
|
|
Geography
>
Area
>
Total
|
14.06 million sq km
Ranked 6th.
338 times more
than
Netherlands
|
41,543 sq km
Ranked 136th.
|
|
|
Geography
>
Climate
|
polar climate characterized by persistent cold and relatively narrow annual temperature ranges; winters characterized by continuous darkness, cold and stable weather conditions, and clear skies; summers characterized by continuous daylight, damp and foggy weather, and weak cyclones with rain or snow
|
temperate; marine; cool summers and mild winters
|
|
|
Geography
>
Coastline
|
45,389 km
Ranked 7th.
101 times more
than
Netherlands
|
451 km
Ranked 113th.
|
|
|
Geography
>
Elevation extremes
>
Highest point
|
sea level 0 m
|
Mount Scenery 862 m (on the island of Saba in the Caribbean, now considered an integral part of the Netherlands following the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles)
|
|
|
Geography
>
Geographic coordinates
|
90 00 N, 0 00 E
|
52 30 N, 5 45 E
|
|
|
Geography
>
Location
|
body of water between Europe, Asia, and North America, mostly north of the Arctic Circle
|
Western Europe, bordering the North Sea, between Belgium and Germany
|
|
|
Geography
>
Natural hazards
|
ice islands occasionally break away from northern Ellesmere Island; icebergs calved from glaciers in western Greenland and extreme northeastern Canada; permafrost in islands; virtually ice locked from October to June; ships subject to superstructure icing from October to May
|
flooding
|
|
|
Geography
>
Natural resources
|
sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, oil and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals and whales)
|
natural gas, petroleum, peat, limestone, salt, sand and gravel, arable land
|
|
|
Geography
>
Terrain
|
central surface covered by a perennial drifting polar icepack that, on average, is about 3 meters thick, although pressure ridges may be three times that thickness; clockwise drift pattern in the Beaufort Gyral Stream, but nearly straight-line movement from the New Siberian Islands (Russia) to Denmark Strait (between Greenland and Iceland); the icepack is surrounded by open seas during the summer, but more than doubles in size during the winter and extends to the encircling landmasses; the ocean floor is about 50% continental shelf (highest percentage of any ocean) with the remainder a central basin interrupted by three submarine ridges (Alpha Cordillera, Nansen Cordillera, and Lomonosov Ridge)
|
mostly coastal lowland and reclaimed land (polders); some hills in southeast
|
|