The share of the Netherlands and the European Union in the global economy has halved since 1980

The share of the Netherlands and the European Union in the total global economy has almost halved in 35 years. This is mainly due to strong growth in China and other emerging countries. The importance of the United States has also declined since 1980, but much less quickly than Europe. CBS reports this.

The economies of all Western countries have grown significantly over the past 35 years, but their relative importance has declined. This is because the growth rate in a number of Asian countries in particular was much higher. For example, China’s share rose from 2.4% to 16.6% over 35 years.

Measured by GDP, the Netherlands’ share actually fell from 1.3% in 1980 to 0.7% in 2014. The share of countries that belong to the European Union today fell from 30 to 17% in the same period.

The United States also saw a decline in its economic importance between 1980 and 2014, but the drop from more than 22% to about 16% was much less significant than in Europe. In 2014, the combined economy of the European Union was only slightly larger than that of the United States.

Today, a group of 37 countries are considered among the most advanced economies. These are countries that formerly belonged to the Western Bloc (including Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) as well as newly developed Eastern European countries such as the Baltic countries. The relative importance of these 37 countries combined has also declined sharply. In 1980, the total share of the total world economy was still 64 percent. Since 2008 it has been ““Western Bloc” However, he lost the largest share. Last year, this percentage shrank to less than 43 percent.

In economic terms, China in 1980 was the size of France today

As the West lost share, the relative importance of emerging Asian economies increased. In 1980, China’s share was 2.4 percent, the same as France’s share today. But at 16.6%, China was the largest economy in the world last year. Despite this catch-up, the EU remains slightly more influential as an economic bloc.

China’s economy is now more than 22 times that of the Netherlands. In 1980, the Chinese economy was not twice as large as the Dutch economy, while China’s population at that time was about 70 times larger. In 2014, the number of Chinese was 81 times greater than the number of Dutch.

The Chinese enter, but they come from afar

The strong development of the Chinese economy also has an impact on the level of prosperity of its population. GDP per capita (the size of the economy) in 2014 was about 17 times higher than it was in 1980. For comparison: in the Netherlands, GDP per capita has not even doubled since 1980. Moreover, per capita GDP China’s GDP (which is roughly equivalent to what the Chinese earned that year) is still only a quarter of that of the Netherlands.

The Dutch GDP per capita was about 39 thousand euros in 2014. The European Union’s GDP is 23 percent lower on average. With Ireland, the Netherlands is almost at the top of Europe, and it only has to tolerate Luxembourg above it. Luxembourg’s population is almost three times larger than the EU average.

Americans also outperform Europeans (and the Dutch), with per capita GDP 47% higher than the European average, and 13% higher than in the Netherlands. Russians have half of the Dutch GDP per capita.

China and India represent a quarter of the global economy

China is not the only country in Asia that has witnessed strong growth over a quarter of a century. Everyone’s share Asian emerging economies They recorded combined economic growth (including China and India, excluding Japan and South Korea), from 9% to 30% in a quarter of a century. The population in those countries increased in the same period from 2.1 billion to nearly 3.5 billion, nearly half of the world’s total population in 2014.

In the emerging countries of Eastern Europe, the share of GDP as part of the rest of the world actually declined, from 4.2% to 3.3%. However, here too, the population became more prosperous between 1980 and 2014: GDP per capita increased almost five-fold during that period.