Executive summary

Globalisation shapes the Dutch economy in many ways — through trade, investment, production chains, jobs, and income. The Internationalisation Monitor reveals these connections and shows what they mean for the Dutch economy and society. It is published twice annually as part of the Globalisation research programme of Statistics Netherlands (CBS), commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

This edition brings together a wide range of aspects of globalisation that reflect the full breadth of the programme. In eight chapters, we explore trends and developments that together demonstrate how the Netherlands is interconnected with the rest of the world. We present statistics, place these in context, combine existing and new data sources with insights from microdata, and trace international dependencies using input-output analyses.

Chapter 1: The direct and indirect importance of multinationals for the Dutch business economy

• In 2022, 98.2% of Dutch firms were non-multinational SMEs, most of which involved self-employed persons. The number of foreign multinationals increased between 2015 and 2022, while the number of Dutch multinationals declined, particularly smaller firms with under 100 employees.
• In 2021, non-multinationals accounted for 52% of total value added in the business economy, foreign multinationals 28%, and Dutch multinationals 20%. Together, multinationals accounted for almost half (48%) of total value added.
• Foreign multinationals had a relatively large share in information and communication. Large Dutch multinationals were concentrated in manufacturing, while small and medium-sized Dutch multinationals were strongest in trade, transport and accommodation and food services activities. Small and medium-sized non-multinationals had the largest share in construction.
• Between 2015 and 2021, small and medium-sized Dutch multinationals and foreign multinationals showed strong growth in value added and exports per employee. Non-multinationals, especially small and medium-sized non-multinationals, performed less well, underscoring the role of international networks, scale, and technology in productivity growth.
• Small and medium-sized non-multinationals provided the most employment in 2021: around 2.9 million jobs (FTE). Multinationals accounted for 33% of total employment, well below their 48% share of value added.
• Foreign multinationals dominated exports, accounting for 56% of goods exports (excluding re-exports) and 65% of services exports. They also accounted for 60% of goods imports and 67% of service imports.
• On average, 68% of the production of multinationals was exported – mainly directly to foreign markets. This compares to 35% among non-multinationals and demonstrates that multinationals are positioned more closely to end consumers in global value chains.
• Although foreign multinationals led in terms of export value, Dutch multinationals and non-multinationals generated more domestic value due to their lower reliance on imported inputs. Indirect export channels also enabled smaller, non-exporting firms to benefit.
• The final output of multinationals generated €108 billion in indirect earnings for their supplier networks, mostly non-multinational firms – €78 billion from exports and €30 billion from domestic sales. This supported over 1 million jobs (FTE) in their supplier networks. The services sectors benefited substantially from these indirect effects.

Chapter 2: Between cooperation and conflict: the EU’s trade policy towards the United States

• This chapter briefly describes recent trade disputes between the US and the EU, outlines the retaliatory measures implemented by the EU, and provides Dutch import figures for the affected products.
• Tensions escalated in 2025 under the second Trump administration following the reintroduction of US tariffs on steel, aluminium, vehicles, and threats of a general tariff of 30% on all goods imports from the EU.
• The EU prepared a large-scale retaliatory package (€93 billion, 6,458 products) in response, scheduled for August 2025.
• A last-minute agreement on 27 July 2025 resulted in the capping of US tariffs on most EU goods at 15%, leading the EU to suspend its retaliatory package for six months.
• This suspended EU package is far broader than previous measures and involves product groups from three previous conflicts: the aviation subsidies dispute, the 2018 steel/aluminium retaliatory package, and the steel safeguards.
• A long-running WTO dispute over subsidies led to short-lived retaliatory tariffs from the EU (e.g. on tractors, nuts) from November 2020 to March 2021.
• The impact on Dutch imports during this short period was unclear and possibly subject to seasonal effects.
• The EU’s retaliatory tariffs on steel/aluminium, as the EU’s direct response to US ‘Section 232’ tariffs, were active for 2.5 years and included products such as whiskey, motorcycles and jeans.
• A global defensive measure was implemented by the EU in July 2018 in order to prevent trade deflection or market disruptions as a result of the US’s Section 232 tariffs. These are based on tariff-rate quotas (TRQs).
• Imports of products in this package from the US into the Netherlands were significantly lower in total value than the other conflicts.

Chapter 3: Trump’s first trade war and the Dutch supply chain

• Import tariffs have once again become a central theme in global trade. This shift began when the first Trump administration introduced protectionist measures, and it continues to influence developments in international trade. To estimate the costs of this on the Dutch supply chain, we analysed the additional tariffs introduced outside normal WTO agreements, as well as the retaliatory responses taken during Trump’s first term and the first years of the Biden administration.
• Because these additional tariffs are not included in WTO datasets, we created a customised dataset to assess the impact accurately.
• Additional costs due to tariffs increased sharply from 2018 onwards, peaking in 2021, before easing under the Biden administration as steel and aluminium tariffs for the EU and allied countries were suspended. The main impact has been from the US-China trade war, where Chinese retaliatory measures have affected trade flows in the upstream supply chain in the Netherlands, in particular.
• The type of costs has changed over time. In 2018, costs due to steel and aluminium tariffs and the associated retaliatory tariffs dominated. By 2022, tariffs on washing machines and, in particular, solar panels were playing a more prominent role — driven partly by the Biden administration’s green policy initiatives.
• Although these additional tariffs formed a noticeable part of overall tariff costs, their relative burden on the Dutch supply chain remained limited. In 2022, they accounted for 0.08% of total trade value, contributing to an overall tariff burden of 1.55% (WTO MFN tariffs + additional tariffs). This total burden has been declining since 2015. Still, the additional tariffs slowed the rate of decline between 2018 and 2021, showing that their impact cannot be dismissed.
• For steel and aluminium, the Dutch supply chain was primarily affected by EU countermeasures on US imports. Meanwhile, the costs of the US–China tariff conflict intensified significantly — from 2.2% of the value of bilateral trade in 2018 to 13.3% in 2021 — with the balance shifting from mainly US tariffs to an equal share of Chinese retaliatory measures, underlining the force with which China responded to US tariffs.
• Looking ahead, 2025 has brought new sets of higher tariffs on a broader range of products, with China expected to retaliate. For the first time in years, the pressure from global tariffs may rise again, potentially turning into tariff escalation. Statistics Netherlands (CBS) will continue to monitor these developments closely.

Chapter 4: CETA trade agreement: who is reaping the benefits?

• Since September 2017, firms in the Netherlands that trade with Canada have benefited from reduced import tariffs under the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). Despite its potential to lower trade costs, little is known about its use and actual impact on Dutch businesses. This chapter looks at the extent to which Dutch importers are making use of CETA’s preferential tariffs and whether the resulting savings accrue to them or are shared with Canadian exporters.
• The use of CETA among Dutch importers is high. In 2023, imports worth €1.1 billion were eligible for tariff reductions, of which €674 million actually used preferential treatment, yielding a preference utilisation rate (PUR) of 61%. However, when we focus solely on goods originating in the EU or Canada, i.e. those goods that are more likely eligible for preferential treatment, the PUR rises to 80%.
• However, even with a utilisation rate of 80%, €11.3 million of potential savings still go unused. In addition, the (unweighted) share of eligible transactions that use CETA was only 20% in 2023. This suggests that administrative costs continue to prevent the full use of the trade agreement.
• In line with these findings, we find that utilisation rises with potential savings. Firms are more likely to claim preferences when the expected tariff savings are higher. The expected tariff saving is the difference between the normal rate and the preferential rate, multiplied by the import value.
• A second key determinant of preference use is trade experience: the more experience a firm has of trading in a particular type of product, the more likely it is to claim preferences.
• Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make active use of CETA. Contrary to expectations from trade theory, independent SMEs use CETA more often than large firms when measured per transaction. Possible explanations for this include CETA’s SME-friendly design, the simplified self-declaration of origin, and EU–Canada initiatives to support smaller traders.
• Tariff savings accrue fully to Dutch importers. An analysis of import unit values shows no systematic price difference between preferential (CETA) and non-preferential (MFN) imports once product and firm characteristics are controlled for. This indicates a full pass-through of tariff reductions, with importers retaining the benefits rather than sharing them with Canadian exporters.
• Overall, CETA is performing notably well in the Netherlands: it is widely used, and importers are benefiting from the financial gains. Nonetheless, many small shipments still forgo preferences, indicating that there is scope for further simplification or awareness raising. Future research could explore whether and why the utilisation of CETA exceeds that of other EU trade agreements and whether its SME-oriented features might inform future trade policy design.

Chapter 5: Volume and price changes in goods trade

• Imports and exports of goods are traditionally expressed in euros, which obscures changes in the volume of goods traded. Although Statistics Netherlands already produces price and volume indices for the international trade in goods, these do not provide an accurate reflection of international trade according to the concept of border crossing. Neither do they distinguish between countries.
• New price and volume indices have therefore been developed according to the concept of border crossing, which can be broken down by SITC3 product and country.
• We used the unit values at the most detailed level in the source statistic for International Trade in Goods and carried out extensive outlier selection. This resulted in a price index which, when combined with the value index, forms the volume index. We distinguish between products at SITC3 level, countries, and a combination of goods and countries at SITC1 and SITC3 level on an annual basis from 2015 onwards.
• The most recent figures – for the first half of 2025 – show that international trade in goods has stabilised after several turbulent years. Import and export prices rose by 0.3% and 0.1% respectively in the first half of 2025, and import and export volumes both increased by 1.6% year on year.
• Compared to the situation prior to the coronavirus pandemic: the export volume in the first six months of 2025 was 7.3% higher than in the same period of 2019, while the import volume was 0.5% lower.
• We are seeing sharp price increases for food products (e.g. cocoa, coffee, chocolate and butter) and price decreases for mineral fuels (particularly crude oil and refined petroleum products).
• Looking at trade with individual countries, it is striking that import prices from Ireland fell considerably in the first half of 2025, while the volume of imports from that country increased significantly. We also imported considerably more from China in terms of volume, while prices fell slightly. The volume of exports to China fell sharply, by contrast, while the value of exports to Poland grew the most.

Chapter 6: Export intensity of the Dutch business economy

• The export intensity of exporting firms in the Dutch business economy remained remarkably stable between 2018 and 2022, at 18.0–18.6%.
• The combination of stable export intensity with growth in the number of exporters and average export value implies that the domestic turnover of exporting firms grew in relative terms.
• Export dependency varies significantly by sector. In manufacturing and trade, exports are structurally embedded and have a high degree of dependency on foreign markets.
• Large sectors with many exporters and a reasonable (but not exceptional) average export intensity tend to dominate the overall figures on goods exports.
• Multinational enterprises are, on average, more internationally oriented, exporting more frequently and having a higher export share of turnover than non-multinationals.
• Within manufacturing, larger firms generally have a higher export intensity, probably because they are better able to handle international costs and risks.
• Export intensity is positively correlated with productivity, investment in R&D, and involvement in high-tech trade.
• High export intensity is a characteristic of ‘quality’ firms: highly productive, paying higher wages, high investment in R&D and consistently high exports.
• Firms with higher export intensity tend to have a more diversified export and import mix and to be active in more countries and product categories.
• Import diversification is often more limited, suggesting reliance on specific suppliers or raw materials. There is a positive correlation between import dependence and export intensity.
• Export intensive firms are often multinationals or deeply integrated in international value chains, acting as a crucial direct or indirect link between imports and exports (especially when it comes to technology-intensive products).

Chapter 7: How exporting leads to increased productivity

• This chapter explores how firms become more productive as a result of exporting, focusing on firms in the manufacturing and trade sectors with 10 persons employed or more, in the period 2013 to 2021.
• We show that the productivity benefits that result from being an exporter are likely to stem from the scale effects of selling to larger foreign markets, rather than from possible learning effects by selling to more developed countries.
• We characterize the export portfolio of firms in two ways. Firstly, we derive an indicator for the average level of development as an export-weighted average of the GNI per capita across all destinations.
• Secondly, as a measure of upscaling, we simply add up the GNIs of all the destination countries in the firm’s export portfolio. We show that this indicator correlates positively to the upscaling of production by firms in terms of higher export value and intensity, and the number of countries served.
• As the combined size of the countries in the export portfolio of a firm increases, we find that productivity benefits become larger. The productivity premium of exporters active in the largest markets amounts to an average across all industries of 2.1%, whereas for those in the smallest markets it is 0.4.
• An alternative explanation – that productivity may be increased as firms gain new knowledge through their export activities – seems less plausible for firms in the Netherlands, because exporting to more economically developed countries does not seem to be related to higher productivity.
• We argue that this is because the Netherlands is a highly developed country with firms that are relatively productive in global terms. This means that there is less scope for them to learn from firms in other countries. The situation may be different for firms based in other countries.
• On the other hand, exporting to larger or more foreign markets is associated with the scaling-up of production and potentially of investment too, and this leads to productivity increases.
• Our results are consistent with the responses from a survey in which firms indicate what they see as the main benefit of exporting. Only 1 in 20 exporters mention acquiring new knowledge as the most important benefit. Instead, the primary perceived benefits of exporting according to the survey are increasing market size and risk diversification.
• In conclusion, the analysis of linked firm-level data, as well as the results of the survey, suggest that firms that do business abroad benefit more from the size of the foreign markets than from the level of economic development of those markets.

Chapter 8: Structure of employment and the internationalisation of firms

• Employment in the Netherlands is closely linked to internationalisation, with exporters and multinationals playing an increasingly important role in shaping the composition of the workforce.
• In 2023, 44% of all employees in the business economy were employed by firms that consistently export goods – structural exporters – with 29 percentage points representing men and 15 percentage points representing women. This indicates that men are more frequently employed by export-oriented firms.
• Between 2019 and 2023, the share of male employees working for firms that consistently export goods rose from 26% to 29%, while the share for women rose slightly from 14% to 15%, highlighting the persistent gender differential in export-oriented employment.
• The employment share of men in foreign multinationals increased from 11% in 2019 to 15% in 2023. For women, it rose from 8% to 9%. Dutch multinationals’ employment share declined marginally over the same period.
• In the production sector, 40% of employees at structural exporters held a technical, industrial or engineering qualification, compared with 44% at firms that do not export. Structural exporters employ more workers with a background in business, ICT, and natural sciences.
• In the services sector, 35% of employees at export-oriented firms were highly educated (with a higher professional or university degree), compared with 27% at firms that do not export. Foreign multinationals in the services sector had the highest share of highly educated staff (41%).
• In the production sector, 33% of employees at structural exporters held a higher-education degree, compared with 16% at firms that do not export. Medium vocational levels (intermediate and upper secondary vocational education) remained dominant at firms that do not export (49%).
• Technical occupations remain the backbone of the production sector, accounting for 56% of employment at firms that do not export and 46% at firms that consistently export goods. However, exporters and particularly multinationals employ more administrative, commercial and ICT professionals, compared to the average.
• In the services sector, internationally active firms rely more on business, administrative, commercial and ICT occupations, while non-multinationals employ more workers in service and care-related jobs. Internationalisation is thus associated with a shift towards knowledge-intensive and coordinating functions in the Dutch labour market.