Dutch Trade in Facts and Figures 2022: Exports, imports and investment – An introduction

A small, open trading nation such as the Netherlands is strongly interconnected with the wider world, and a crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic throws that interconnectedness into sharp relief. The worldwide lockdowns, travel restrictions and other precautionary measures intended to halt the spread of the coronavirus had an immediate impact on output, consumption, trade, transport and investments in 2020. Shortages of crucial components such as microchips and semiconductors only grew more acute throughout 2020 and 2021, and an uneven recovery of supply and demand in the global economy triggered production chain supply problems, increased transportation costs and caused a sharp rise in the price of raw materials. When the Ever Given container ship ran aground in the Suez Canal in March 2021, it was a telling reminder of how global trade can be simultaneously both efficient and vulnerable. The situation in the Suez Canal caused several days of enormous congestion on one of the world’s most important waterways, delaying thousands of just-in-time processes due to missing components and forcing buyers to watch as their wares rotted away (Vermeulen & Goslinga, 2021; RTL News, 2021). As the economic advisers to the US President noted, 2021 was the year when international production chains and mutual dependencies between countries became a topic of conversation around ordinary people’s kitchen tables (Council of Economic Advisers, 2022).

By early in 2021, the Dutch trade in goods had recovered its pre-crisis level and was growing rapidly. Exports of goods totalled almost €52 billion in March 2021: a monthly record. The value of goods exports was 14% higher throughout 2021 compared to the pre-COVID year of 2019; in terms of volume, goods exports were up by 7%. The international trade in services took longer to recover from the global coronavirus pandemic, in particular due to recurring lockdowns and travel restrictions. In 2021, the import and export values of services were 15% and 11% below 2019 levels, respectively. The Omicron variant pushed the Netherlands into another lockdown at the end of 2021, which once again limited journeys and holidays (travel) and imposed a small setback on the further recovery of the Dutch economy (0.7% GDP growth in the fourth quarter). However, the admittedly strong increases in the prices of raw materials and energy towards the end of 2021 were nothing compared with the explosion in prices of natural gas, petroleum, food and raw materials that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 2022 promises to be another eventful year, still characterised by sky-high inflation, a tight labour market with a record number of job vacancies per jobseeker, parity between the euro and the dollar and war on the eastern border of the European Union. The latest news and reports in the field of globalisation, such as the Internationalisation Monitor, can be found in our dossier.

Dutch Trade in Facts and Figures 2022: Exports, imports and investment has been developed by the Expertise Centre for Globalisation at Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and was commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It includes the latest trends and annually recurring key figures and indicators on the internationalisation of the Dutch economy and business economy. These key figures, indicators and descriptive trends offer rapid access to the most relevant data on international trade, enterprises that trade internationally and the role of the Netherlands in international production chains.

The publication consists of seven descriptive chapters, illustrated with many figures, infographics and tables. These chapters present the key trends, figures and developments for 2021 and sometimes 2020, and where possible we also look ahead to 2022. The datasets that form the basis of the figures, tables and infographics in these chapters are so extensive that they have not been included in full here; they can be accessed and downloaded from the home page of this publication. As in previous years, the publication begins with a dashboard showing a general overview of the important findings set out in the chapters. The dashboard and the chapters are in the following order:

• What are the latest developments (Chapter 2)?
• What goods and how much of them does the Netherlands trade, and with which countries (Chapter 3)?
• What services does the Netherlands trade, to what extent, and with which countries (Chapter 4)?
• Which firms trade internationally, and what characterises the owners and employees of these enterprises (Chapter 5)?
• How much do exports contribute to the Netherlands, and how much employment is involved in exports (Chapter 6)?
• How do goods and services from the rest of the world work their way through the Dutch economy (Chapter 7)?
• How much does the Netherlands invest internationally, and how much do other countries invest in the Netherlands (Chapter 8)?

What has changed since the 2021 edition?

Several changes have been made to ‘Dutch Trade in Facts and Figures 2022’ compared to the previous edition. This publication includes a separate chapter on developments in the value of the goods trade in 2021 (Chapter 3), a separate chapter on developments in the value of the trade in services in 2021 (Chapter 4), and a chapter that reviews the actors who drive this trade in goods and services (Chapter 5). Chapter 3, which deals with the goods trade, has been comprehensively expanded this year to include a Constant Market Share analysis. This analysis provides a detailed study of the Netherlands’ share in total global trade and in the total trading value of specific partner countries. For the first time, Chapter 6 includes a description of the occupations most closely associated with Dutch exports of goods and services. The chapter on the link between emissions of CO₂, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter and international goods flows, which appeared in the 2021 edition, is not included this year.

Current developments

Many of the figures given in this publication concern the years up to and including 2021. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, Brexit, inflation and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, 2020, 2021 and – to a certain extent – 2022 were atypical years. In recognition of this situation, the previous edition’s ‘corona box’ has been replaced with a new chapter which outlines the latest developments and – insofar as the current figures allow – backs up those recent developments with data. Where possible, the four topics mentioned above also form a common thread throughout the other chapters.

References

Open references