Economy Stats: compare key data on Christmas Island & United Kingdom

SHARE TWEET EMBED

Select year 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2008 2010 2011 2012 2013

•  

STAT	Christmas Island	United Kingdom	HISTORY
Agriculture > Products	NA	cereals, oilseed, potatoes, vegetables; cattle, sheep, poultry; fish
Currency	Australian dollar	British pound
Overview	The main economic activities on Christmas Island are the mining of low grade phosphate, limited tourism, the provision of government services and more recently the construction and operation of the Immigration Detention Center. The government sector includes administration, health, education, policing, customs, quarantine and defense.	The UK, a leading trading power and financial center, is the second largest economy in Europe after Germany. Over the past two decades, the government has greatly reduced public ownership and contained the growth of social welfare programs. Agriculture is intensive, highly mechanized, and efficient by European standards, producing about 60% of food needs with less than 2% of the labor force. The UK has large coal, natural gas, and oil resources, but its oil and natural gas reserves are declining and the UK became a net importer of energy in 2005. Services, particularly banking, insurance, and business services, account by far for the largest proportion of GDP while industry continues to decline in importance. After emerging from recession in 1992, Britain's economy enjoyed the longest period of expansion on record during which time growth outpaced most of Western Europe. In 2008, however, the global financial crisis hit the economy particularly hard, due to the importance of its financial sector. Sharply declining home prices, high consumer debt, and the global economic slowdown compounded Britain's economic problems, pushing the economy into recession in the latter half of 2008 and prompting the then BROWN (Labour) government to implement a number of measures to stimulate the economy and stabilize the financial markets; these include nationalizing parts of the banking system, temporarily cutting taxes, suspending public sector borrowing rules, and moving forward public spending on capital projects. Facing burgeoning public deficits and debt levels, in 2010 the CAMERON-led coalition government (between Conservatives and Liberal Democrats) initiated a five-year austerity program, which aimed to lower London's budget deficit from over 10% of GDP in 2010 to nearly 1% by 2015. In November 2011, Chancellor of the Exchequer George OSBORNE announced additional austerity measures through 2017 because of slower-than-expected economic growth and the impact of the euro-zone debt crisis. The CAMERON government raised the value added tax from 17.5% to 20% in 2011. It has pledged to reduce the corporation tax rate to 21% by 2014. The Bank of England (BoE) implemented an asset purchase program of up to £375 billion (approximately $605 billion) as of December 2012. During times of economic crisis, the BoE coordinates interest rate moves with the European Central Bank, but Britain remains outside the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). In 2012, weak consumer spending and subdued business investment weighed on the economy. GDP fell 0.1%, and the budget deficit remained stubbornly high at 7.7% of GDP. Public debt continued to increase.
Exchange rates	Australian dollars (AUD) per US dollar -<br />0.97 (2012)<br />0.97 (2011)<br />1.09 (2010)<br />1.28 (2009)<br />1.21 (2008)	British pounds (GBP) per US dollar -<br />0.63 (2012 est.)<br />0.62 (2011 est.)<br />0.65 (2010 est.)<br />0.62 (2009)<br />0.53 (2008)
Exports > Commodities	phosphate	manufactured goods, fuels, chemicals; food, beverages, tobacco
Fiscal year	1	6
Imports > Commodities	consumer goods	manufactured goods, machinery, fuels; foodstuffs
Industries	tourism, phosphate extraction (near depletion)	machine tools, electric power equipment, automation equipment, railroad equipment, shipbuilding, aircraft, motor vehicles and parts, electronics and communications equipment, metals, chemicals, coal, petroleum, paper and paper products, food processing, textiles, clothing, other consumer goods
Trade > Exports to US	$100,000.00 Ranked 207th.	$10.17 billion Ranked 6th. 101716 times more than Christmas Island
Trade balance with US	$200,000.00 Ranked 95th.	$-1,454,200,000.00 Ranked 202nd.

15 30 60 All

APA MLA MHRA CSE AMA Chicago Bluebook Bluebook/JOLT Citation