Netherlands
Foreign trade
The Dutch have traditionally been a powerful force in international trade. In recent years, the Netherlands has increased its trade in industrial products and decreased trade in food products and foodstuffs. Principal Dutch exports today are manufactured goods, machines, chemicals, petroleum products, natural gas, and foods. Chief imports are manufactured products, machines, crude petroleum, and chemicals. From 1981 through 2000, the Netherlands experienced trade surpluses each year.
The major export commodities of the Netherlands include machinery and equipment, fuels, chemicals, vegetables, and vegetable products. The top nine exports are as follows:
| % OF COUNTRY TOTAL | |
| Automatic data processing | |
| equipment | 8.4 |
| Refined petroleum products | 6.9 |
| Electronic microcircuits | 3.9 |
| Telecommunications equipment | 3.0 |
| Crude vegetable materials | 2.5 |
| Natural and manufactured gas | 2.5 |
| Meat | 2.4 |
| Polymers | 2.2 |
| Vegetables | 1.8 |
In 2000 the Netherlands's imports were distributed among the following categories:
| Consumer goods | 15.3% |
| Food | 8.4% |
| Fuels | 11.0% |
| Industrial supplies | 23.4% |
| Machinery | 31.5% |
| Transportation | 10.2% |
| Other | 0.2% |
Principal trading partners in 2000 (in millions of US dollars) were as follows:
| COUNTRY | EXPORTS | IMPORTS | BALANCE |
| Germany | 43,166 | 26,506 | 16,660 |
| Belgium | 18,335 | 14,009 | 4,326 |
| United Kingdom | 18,079 | 15,914 | 2,165 |
| France | 17,807 | 9,151 | 8,656 |
| Italy | 10,258 | 3,965 | 6,293 |
| United States | 8,677 | 18,815 | -10,138 |
| Spain | 5,432 | 3,572 | 1,860 |
| Sweden | 3,676 | 3,968 | -292 |
| Switzerland | 3,110 | 2,201 | 909 |
| Japan | 1,839 | 7,906 | -6,067 |
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