Photo: ANP
The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) reports that a quarter of the Netherlands’ economic growth ended abroad last year. This was partly because Shell moved to the UK and the profits of the Dutch subsidiaries largely flowed there. Other companies have also paid a portion of their dramatically increased profits abroad. Within the Netherlands, much of the economic growth has come from households.
According to Statistics Holland, the fact that a large part of the Dutch economic growth has gone abroad is also due to an earlier agreement on the closure of the Groningen gas field. Due to the accelerated closure, NAM will receive compensation from the government for filling gas storage in Norg with foreign gas. In addition to the British Shell, the American ExxonMobil owns NAM.
While in 2022 foreign countries benefited in a balanced way from Dutch economic growth, the opposite was the case almost a year ago. At that time, people in the Netherlands were getting more credit from abroad, for example through earnings or salaries from foreign employers.
The Dutch economy grew by 4.5 percent in 2022, but without correcting for high inflation, it was 10 percent, according to Statistics Netherlands. A significant part of this, that is, half, ended up with families. Her disposable income, that is, what is left after paying taxes and social security contributions, rose before and after adjusting for inflation.
One reason is that people started to work much more, with a record number of hours worked in 2022. But the people who worked less fell behind because wages did not rise as quickly as prices. The companies’ disposable income actually decreased, because they paid out much of their greatly increased dividend to shareholders.
