The economy

For a small country with a small population, the Netherlands has a large and powerful economy. It is the world's sixth-largest exporting country (third-largest in the export of food), the sixth-largest source of investment, and its gross domestic product (GDP) is the 14th-highest in the world.
The workforce numbers 6.8 million, 64% of whom work in the service sector, with a relatively low 36% in manufacturing, agriculture, and government.
The per-capita GDP was U 22,570 in 1998, and unemployment stood at around 5%.
The Dutch economic system is widely regarded as a model of consensus.
Stability is maintained by close and regular contact in the socio-economic Council between the trade unions, employers' organisations, and independent consultants appointed by the government.
The two sides of industry also have permanent contact in the Labour Foundation. The government interferes as little as possible in industrial relations.
STRATEGIC POSITION: The Netherlands has become a hub of international commerce. It has an advanced transport infrastructure centred on Rotterdam and Schiphol as well as one of the world's most advanced telecommunications infrastructures, which includes GigaPort - Europe's first direct Internet 2 link with the USA.
More than half the Netherlands' GDP comes from international trade, earning it a regular balance of payments surplus.
This global presence has attracted many multinational companies to the country, as have its central geographical position, flexible labour relations, and educated multilingual workforce.
THE SERVICE SECTOR: In the past twenty years, direct and commercial services have grown into the largest economic sector in the Netherlands.
In the past ten years, growth in the export of commercial services has even outstripped that of manufactured goods.
Trade is the largest activity in the service sector, followed by transport and communications, construction, banking and insurance, and other commercial services.
Most service-sector companies work mainly in the domestic market. Work outside the country is more important to transport companies, technical consultancies, and commodities traders.
Dutch commercial banks - the largest being ABN-Amro and ING - have branches world-wide serving both Dutch companies abroad and non-Dutch companies and governments.
The Netherlands' three largest commodities traders are Ahold, SHV Holdings, and Hagemeyer. Dutch manufacturing companies, such as Unilever, Philips, Akzo Nobel and Shell, also trade in commodities.
The Dutch transport industry is centred on Schiphol Airport (near Amsterdam) and the port of Rotterdam.
The best known Dutch transport companies are KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Nedlloyd, Frans Maas, and Smit International.
Companies with larger foreign operations than domestic ones include the dredging companies Boskalis, HAM, and Ballast Nedam. And in the telecommunications industry, KPN Nederland has entered into many joint ventures with its foreign counterparts.
MANUFACTURING: One of the main features of the Dutch manufacturing sector is its international outlook, not only as an exporter, but also in its location of production plants and its willingness to join forces with foreign companies.
The main manufacturing industries are chemicals, food processing, and metalworking.
There are also highly developed printing and electrical engineering industries. Production processes in all these industries have been rapidly automated over the past ten years, making them strongly competitive on world markets.
The Netherlands is home to the world's largest chemical companies.
The Dutch metal-working industry specialises in making machinery, and its extensive use of electronic control systems has made it a world leader in the manufacture of food-processing equipment, vehicles, and whole production systems for the food and chemical industries. This has boosted the development of a strong electronics industry.
The main markets for Dutch manufactured goods are Germany, France, Belgium, and the UK. The Netherlands is also Europe's second-largest supplier of high-tech goods for both industrial and consumer use. Germany imports more from the Netherlands than from the USA or the UK.
ENERGY: There are huge natural gas reserves in the north of the Netherlands, making it Western Europe's largest producer.
Drilling companies operate in gas and oil fields both on land and in the Dutch part of the continental shelf.
In addition, the port of Rotterdam imports and refines huge quantities of crude oil bound for all over Western Europe.
And pipelines transport crude oil and its products directly to the industrial centres of Germany and Belgium.
The existence of refineries and offshore installations has spawned a wide range of activities serving the oil and gas industries.
Four large manufacturers of steel structures, for instance, design and build entire refineries and offshore installations.
And there are dozens more companies specialising in all sorts of equipment. Several Dutch research institutes have laboratories for simulating offshore conditions.
In the late 1980s, the Dutch government introduced strict environmental legislation - encouraging researchers to develop technologies for purifying wastewater, neutralising waste gases, and processing industrial and domestic waste.
The Netherlands now has some of the world's cleanest production plants. Around 40 Dutch companies are making electricity generators driven by biomass, solar, or wind power.
More than 2% of Dutch electricity now comes from sustainable sources, and this proportion is growing constantly. The goal is 10% by 2020.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY: The Netherlands is a country with few natural resources. It therefore has to create wealth primarily by developing and applying knowledge.
More than 60,000 researchers work in Dutch companies, universities, and research institutes.
Each year, U 4.6 billion are spent on research - half of it by companies and a quarter each by universities and research institutes.
Dutch researchers produce 7% of the EU's scientific publications and hold 6% of its patents. Around 5,000 Dutch companies conduct their own research to develop new products and make production more efficient.
The country's five largest multinationals - Philips, Shell, Akzo Nobel, DSM, and Unilever - are at the forefront of industrial research and development.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs actively encourages technological innovation with a wide range of subsidies open to all companies in the Netherlands, regardless of the owners' nationality.
And it encourages the use of new technologies in small and medium sized companies through a network of 18 Innovation Centres, which advise them and broker contacts with other companies and research institutes.
Twelve spearhead projects for the knowledge infrastructure are currently in progress, with a budget of U 212 million up to 2002.
These projects are forging links between companies, educational institutions, and government in areas such as miniaturisation, hydraulic engineering in delta areas, traffic and transport, biotechnology, and data communications (GigaPort).
GigaPort is the result of a spearhead project and an example of technology serving the economy directly.
It has given the Netherlands Europe's first direct transatlantic Internet 2 Abilene link - making it even more attractive as a location for companies in information and communications technology.