Aus-tria has limited natural resources in terms of fossil fu-els, metals, ores, and other raw materials, and many of the resources used for production and consumption have to be imported
Trang 1omy, generating up to $5 billion Australian(about $4
billion U.S.) in gross value each year and employing
around 370,000 people across Australia Farms in
Aus-tralia have traditionally been family businesses, passed
on from generation to generation However,
begin-ning in the 1950’s, international economic factors
and changes in farming methods led to larger farms
being more economically viable than small ones The
number of farming families in Australia has steadily
decreased and the average size of farms has increased
Different types of farming are concentrated mainly
in the areas that suit them best, depending on water
availability and climatic conditions The grazing of
livestock (mainly sheep and cattle) takes up the most
land in Australian agriculture Sheep are found
pri-marily in New South Wales, Western Australia, and
Victoria About 90 percent of all cattle are used for
beef Queensland and New South Wales are
Austra-lia’s main beef cattle producers, with the Northern
Territory contributing about 10 percent of the beef
cattle market Dairying occurs mainly in the southern
states, predominantly in Victoria
Crop growing contributes to more than 50 percent
of the value of Australian agriculture every year Wheat
and other grain crops are spread fairly evenly across
New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, Western
Australia, and Queensland, and sugarcane is a major
crop in Queensland and New South Wales Fruit
grow-ing and vegetable growgrow-ing occur in all states
Other Resources
Australia is also extremely rich in zinc reserves, the
principal sources for which are Mount Isa and Mount
Morgan in Queensland The Northern Territory also
has lead and zinc mines and vast reserves of bauxite
(aluminium ore), near Weipa on the Gulf of
Car-penteria and at Gove in Arnhem Land
W J Maunder
Further Reading
Browne, G S Australia, a General Account: History,
Re-sources, Production, Social Conditions Whitefish,
Mont.: Kessinger, 2007
Halliday, James James Halliday’s Wine Atlas of Australia.
Prahran, Vic.: Hardie Grant Books, 2009
Horne, Donald The Lucky Country: Australia in the
Sixties 2d rev ed Sydney: Angus & Robertson,
1978
Malcolm, Bill, et al Agriculture in Australia: An
Intro-duction New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Turner, Lynne, et al Where River Meets Sea: Exploring Australia’s Estuaries Canberra, A.C.T.: CSIRO,
2006
See also: Agricultural products; Agriculture indus-try; Coal; Copper; Tungsten; Uranium
Austria
Categories: Countries; government and resources
While Austria is known for its cultural heritage in terms of classical music, it is also one of the most eco-nomically rich countries in Europe and the world Aus-tria has limited natural resources in terms of fossil fu-els, metals, ores, and other raw materials, and many of the resources used for production and consumption have to be imported However, Austria is rich in renew-able resources such as timber and hydropower Austria
is also home to the largest Alpine national park, with many natural habitats and species.
The Country Austria is a small, land-locked country in central Eu-rope, covering the eastern half of the Alps The coun-try’s gross domestic product (GDP) is about 270 bil-lion euros (about $385 bilbil-lion), with a per-capita income that averages 32,570 euros (about $46,000) Austrian per-capita income therefore ranks among those of the ten richest countries in the world The Austrian population is concentrated mostly in the eastern lowlands of the country and in some inner-Alpine valleys and basins, with the eastern Alps cover-ing more than two-thirds of the country’s area Of the nation’s total area, 47 percent is covered by forests, ar-able land amounts to about 17 percent, and high al-pine mountains and rocks cover more than 10 per-cent About 38 percent of the land is permanent settlement area
Land Use Forests are the most important land cover in Austria, occupying 47 percent Forest growth has been on the rise, because marginal soils have been covered again
by trees, while in densely populated areas forests have been increasingly pushed back Dense agriculture can
be found in about one-third of the land area Of Aus-tria’s total area, about 3 percent (2,300 square
Trang 2kilome-Austria: Resources at a Glance
Official name: Republic of Austria Government: Federal republic Capital city: Vienna
Area: 31,999 mi2; 82,871 km2
Population (2009 est.): 8,210,281 Language: German
Monetary unit: euro (EUR)
Economic summary:
GDP composition by sector (2008 est.): agriculture, 1.9%; industry, 30.7%; services, 67.4%
Natural resources: oil, coal, lignite, timber, iron ore, copper, zinc, antimony, magnesite, tungsten, graphite, salt,
hydropower
Land use (2005): arable land, 16.59%; permanent crops, 0.85%; other, 82.56%
Industries: construction, machinery, vehicles and parts, food, metals, chemicals, lumber and wood processing,
paper and paperboard, communications equipment, tourism
Agricultural products: grains, potatoes, sugar beets, wine, fruit, dairy products, cattle, pigs, poultry, lumber
Exports (2008 est.): $163.6 billion
Commodities exported: machinery and equipment, motor vehicles and parts, paper and paperboard, metal goods,
chemicals, iron and steel, textiles, foodstuffs
Imports (2008 est.): $168.9 billion
Commodities imported: machinery and equipment, motor vehicles, chemicals, metal goods, oil and oil products,
foodstuffs
Labor force (2008 est.): 3.633 million
Labor force by occupation (2005 est.): agriculture, 5.5%; industry, 27.5%; services, 67%
Energy resources:
Electricity production (2007 est.): 59.31 billion kWh
Electricity consumption (2006 est.): 62.35 billion kWh
Electricity exports (2007 est.): 18.47 billion kWh
Electricity imports (2007 est.): 28.5 billion kWh
Natural gas production (2007 est.): 1.848 billion m3
Natural gas consumption (2007 est.): 8.436 billion m3
Natural gas exports (2007 est.): 2.767 billion m3
Natural gas imports (2007 est.): 9.658 billion m3
Natural gas proved reserves ( Jan 2008 est.): 16.14 billion m3
Oil production (2007 est.): 24,920 bbl/day Oil imports (2005): 313,500 bbl/day Oil proved reserves ( Jan 2008 est.): 50 million bbl Source: Data from The World Factbook 2009 Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency, 2009.
Notes: Data are the most recent tracked by the CIA Values are given in U.S dollars Abbreviations: bbl/day = barrels per day;
GDP = gross domestic product; km 2 = square kilometers; kWh = kilowatt-hours; m 3 = cubic meters; mi 2 = square miles.
Vienna
Austria
Italy
Germany
Hungary
Czech Republic
Slovakia Liechtenstein
Slovenia Switzerland
Trang 3ters) is sealed for buildings, of which 70 percent are
for residential and 30 percent for commercial
pur-poses In total, 4,400 square kilometers are sealed for
construction and transportation purposes
Additionally, 12 to 15 hectares per day are
cur-rently sealed for residential and transportation
pur-poses, totaling more than 50 square kilometers per
year New industrial zones, residential areas, and
trans-port infrastructure in particular (roads) are the main
causes for sealing the land There has been an
increas-ing conflict between newly developed areas and areas
valuable for nature conservation (habitats for fauna
and flora)
The Austrian Sustainability Strategy presented by
the Austrian government in 2002 aimed at reducing
the “consumption” of areas to 1 hectare per day The
main reasons for area consumption are expansion of
construction and transportation due to changing
life-styles, income growth, large shopping malls and
com-mercial areas at the outskirts of the cities, and lack of
consistent zoning and spatial planning Together with
other area-consuming or -using activities—such as
ag-riculture, forestry, and sports (golf and skiing)—only
small patches of Austrian mountains and forests have
remained undeveloped With the sealing of large
areas, the ecological functions of soil are reduced
While the quality of Austrian soils is generally good,
there is some environmental pressure in terms of
pol-lution and erosion
Materials Extraction and Consumption
While domestic extraction is significant in the sector
of nonmetallic minerals such as sand, gravel, and
other construction materials—about 83 million
met-ric tons annually—imports are low, at about 9.6
per-cent, because of the high transport costs relative to
the price of the product Domestic production of
fos-sil fuels is also low compared to total consumption
Therefore, Austria has to import much of its fossil
fuel About 2.7 million metric tons are extracted
do-mestically, while imports amount to more than 36
mil-lion metric tons
Austria’s materials consumption increased in the
first decade of the twenty-first century In terms of the
direct material input (DMI), the Austrian economy
used 200 million metric tons of materials in 2006
Measured by the domestic materials consumption
(DMC), Austria consumes 158 million metric tons
of materials Minerals and construction materials
amount to about 83 million metric tons, while fossil
fuels account for around 41 million metric tons Around 36 million metric tons of biomass are con-sumed by the Austrian economy These figures corre-spond to an annual per-capita consumption of materi-als of roughly 19 million metric tons, representing a significant increase from 14.5 million metric tons in
1970 While most of the construction materials and biomass are extracted domestically at a mostly con-stant level, the major share of fossil fuels is imported Relative to GDP, around 1 kilogram of materials is consumed per euro of GDP, meaning resource pro-ductivity in terms of GDP per kilogram of material inputs is also about 1 euro per kilogram While the use
of biomass stays about constant, the growth of ma-terials consumption can be attributed to the large increase in the use of fossil fuels and construction ma-terials Beginning in 1970, Austrian materials con-sumption rose annually by 1.5 to 2.1 percent While the DMC increased to a smaller extent, the growth in material inputs (DMI) was mainly the result of im-porting materials for producing export goods, espe-cially in the metal-producing sectors The growth of materials consumption is mainly determined by in-creases in income (GDP) For most material groups, especially fossil fuels and construction materials, in-come growth in general and the growth of the produc-tion of energy- and material-intensive export sectors are the main driving forces After the oil price shock
in the mid-1970’s, material intensity decreased by roughly 20 percent but stayed rather constant begin-ning in the mid-1990’s Policies focusing on reducing material inputs and consumption are included in the Austrian Sustainability Strategy aiming at stabiliz-ing materials consumption in the short run and in-creasing resource productivity by a factor of 4 in the long run
Biodiversity Biodiversity as defined by the United Nations Conven-tion on Biological Diversity comprises diversity within and between species and ecosystems (habitats, land-scapes) In Austria, species (fauna and flora) as well as habitats are protected by provincial, national, and in-ternational (especially European Union) law On a national scale, 33 percent of plant species are threat-ened, while an additional 21 percent are locally en-dangered Of particular concern are lichen species; more than 60 percent are threatened About 10 per-cent of vertebrate species are threatened Only about one-third of mammals, birds, and fish are listed on
Trang 4the International Union for Conservation of Nature
(IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, category
“least concern.” More than 60 percent of reptile
spe-cies are threatened Spespe-cies loss is mainly because of
habitat loss, devaluation, and fragmentation For
in-stance, 83 percent of wetlands and 57 percent of
for-est ecosystems are endangered
Protected areas are established on an area of
31,019 square kilometers, corresponding to 37
per-cent of the Austrian territory This area includes 6
na-tional parks (according to the IUCN’s category II
defi-nition), 403 nature conservation areas, 248 protected
landscapes, and 111 European conservation zones
More than 200 of these protected areas are also part of
the European Union’s network of protected areas
Austria supported the European Union’s goal of
re-ducing biodiversity loss by 2010
Timber
About 47 percent of Austrian territory is covered
with forests (39,600 square kilometers out of 83,872
square kilometers) Therefore, timber is a significant natural resource in Austria However, because of the mountainous regions of the eastern Alps and the partially cold climate, not all forests can be economi-cally managed for timber production Timber pro-duction is generally an important use of forests Equally important is erosion control and protection
of settlements from landslides and avalanches on the steep slopes of the Alps Furthermore, forests pro-vide important functions in terms of water purifica-tion and storage, micro- and meso-climate regulapurifica-tion, and recreation The Austrian Forest Program pre-sented by the Austrian government in 2006 aims at achieving a sustainable and multifunctional use of forests
Only 3 percent of Austrian forests are categorized
as “pristine,” while another 22 percent are described
as “natural.” Forty-four percent are “moderately mod-ified,” while another 22 percent are classified as
“heavily modified.” Forests are generally important for conserving biodiversity Less that 1 percent of
Aus-Forest workers load timber onto a railroad car in this 1910 photograph Timber is one of Austria’s primary resources (Getty Images)
Trang 5trian forests are categorized as “minimum
interven-tion,” while another 2.7 percent are managed under
some regime for biodiversity conservation
Twenty-three percent of Austrian forests are part of protected
areas
According to the Austrian Forest Inventory, about
one-half of the annual increase in biomass is
har-vested Out of 9.3 cubic meters of biomass increase
per hectare, 5.6 cubic meters are in use In the first
de-cade of the twenty-first century, forest areas grew by
roughly 1 percent with an increasing trend In 2007,
21.3 million cubic meters of timber were harvested
in Austrian forests, corresponding to an increase of
11.4 percent over the previous year Value added in
the forestry sector amounted to about 1.5 billion
eu-ros (about $2.1 billion); the total annual production
value was estimated to be 2.7 billion euros (about $3.8
billion) per year The actual quantity of timber
har-vested is lower than the potential sustainable yield of
about 24.8 million cubic meters per year About
one-third of timber is used as biofuels, the rest for
com-mercial purposes such as furniture Compared to the
production of all European Union countries of 426
million cubic meters, Austria’s share in Europe’s
tim-ber production is larger than the country’s size (area)
might suggest Austria produces about 3 cubic meters
of timber per capita and therefore ranks fifth of all
Eu-ropean countries Only Sweden, Finland, Latvia, and
Estonia produce more timber per capita This also
leads to an above-average paper and paperboard
pro-duction, estimated at 0.54 metric ton per capita Only
in Finland and Sweden is per-capita production of
pa-per higher than in Austria
Climate change is one of the threats to functioning
forest ecosystems Beginning in the early 1990’s,
natu-ral events such as hurricanes increased in frequency
and intensity Timber stocks in Austrian forests amount
to about 1,094 billion cubic meters In 2007,
Hurri-cane Kyrill affected 3.3 million cubic meters of
tim-ber, which had to be extracted from the forests This
natural disaster led to a significant price decline of
forest products, especially for low-quality timber On
the other hand, periods of drought such as in the
sum-mer of 2003 additionally weakened the resilience of
forest ecosystems Furthermore, the bark beetle has
negatively affected large patches of forests
Austrian forests are also considered important in
terms of climate change policies Austrian forests
serve as a carbon sink because of the increase in
tim-ber stocks Austrian forests are a major supplier of
biofuels and therefore contribute to reducing green-house gases
Water Resources and Use Austria is a country rich in water resources As the Alps form a barrier for clouds, annual precipitation amounts to about 1,100 millimeters per square meter Tributaries from abroad account for an additional in-flux of 320 millimeters per square meter Evaporation leads to a reduction in water resources of 500 millime-ters per square meter, and the outflow of surface water and groundwater amounts to 920 millimeters per square meter The annual average of renewable water resources totals 84 billion cubic meters, with a total water consumption by the Austrian economy of 2.6 billion cubic meters That means that around 3 per-cent of renewable water resources are used, mainly
in the agricultural and industrial sectors From a quantitative viewpoint, water use and diversion are most prominent in hydropower stations, as around
60 percent of Austrian rivers are significantly im-pacted Austrian households receive about one-half
of their drinking water from springs, while the other half comes from groundwater Ninety percent of Aus-trian households are connected to the public sewage system
More than 93 percent of groundwater bodies are
in a good chemical state The majority of surface wa-ters have good or very good water quality Water qual-ity is reduced to moderate qualqual-ity only in single “hot spots” such as downstream of large cities The main threats to water resources in Austria are nonpoint pol-lution sources from the agricultural sector and the modification of surface waters for hydropower plants and ship transport on the main river of Austria, the Danube
While agricultural, commercial, and residential consumption of water is important, probably the most important use of water resources, in quantitative terms,
is in electricity production About 65 percent of Aus-trian electricity is produced in hydropower plants along the large Austrian rivers such as the Danube This also leads to a comparatively high share of renew-able energy sources, which account for about 24 per-cent of total energy consumption Some of this elec-tricity is also traded on European energy markets The good state of water resources in Austria is the result of the strict regulatory framework of the Aus-trian Clean Water Act, which prescribes the “state of the art in pollution control technology” for all water
Trang 6uses and wastewater discharges, and to the extensive
use of environmental subsidies for municipalities and
water-polluting industries More over, the European
Union’s Water Framework Directive (WFD) has been
implemented in Austria, aiming at a good ecological
state of all water resources and at the incorporation of
all environmental and resource costs and benefits in
the pricing of water services
Other Resources
About 40 percent of Austrian territory is used for
agri-culture The share of domestic food production
com-pared to total food consumption in Austria is 95
per-cent for cereals, 93 perper-cent for sugar, 88 perper-cent for
potatoes, 66 percent for fruits, and 31 percent for
veg-etable oil The production value of the agricultural
sector amounts to about 8.1 billion euros (11.5
$bil-lion) with a share of total production value of about
1.8 percent
One resource that is plentiful in Austria is tungsten
(wolfram); Austria has one of the largest deposits
worldwide Tungsten has the highest melting point
of all nonalloyed metals Therefore, it is used in
fila-ments for lightbulbs, cathode-ray tubes, vacuum tubes,
and other high-temperature applications in the
elec-trical, heating, and welding industries
Michael Getzner
Further Reading
Austrian Environmental Protection Agency The State
of the Environment in Austria 8th Environmental Con-trol Report Vienna: Umweltbundesamt, 2008.
Köck, J., U Schubert, and S Sedlacek “Environmen-tal Policy and Environment-Oriented Technology
Policy in Austria.” Environment and Policy 38 (2003):
25-58
Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Devel-opment Environmental Performance Review: Austria.
Paris: Author, 2003
Wurzel, Rüdiger K W., et al “Struggling to Leave Be-hind a Regulatory Past? ‘New’ Environmental
Pol-icy Instruments in Austria.” In “New” Instruments of Environmental Governance? edited by Andrew
Jor-dan, Rüdiger K W Wurzel, and Anthony R Zito London: Frank Cass, 2007
Web Sites Austrian Central Bureau of Statistics Statistics Austria
http://www.statistik.at/web_en/
Umweltbundesamt (Austrian Federal Environmental Protection Agency) http://www.umweltbundesamt.at/en/
See also: Forests; Hydroenergy; Tungsten
Trang 7Barite
Category: Mineral and other nonliving resources
Where Found
Rich vein deposits of barite are in Mexico, Algeria,
and Morocco Residual deposits left by the
weather-ing away of barite-bearweather-ing limestones and dolomites
exist in Georgia, Missouri, and
Ten-nessee There are major bedded
de-posits in Arkansas and Nevada;
im-portant bedded deposits also exist in
Germany, France, Ireland, and other
European countries
Primary Uses
Most of the barite produced is used
in petroleum and natural gas
explo-ration to increase the density of
drill-ing fluid It also has uses in the
man-ufacture of glass, rubber, and some
plastics
Technical Definition
Barite, the most common barium
mineral, is barium sulfate, BaSO4 It
occurs as white, gray, or black tabular
crystals with three good cleavages
and a Mohs scale hardness of 2.5 to
3.5 Its most notable property is its
high specific gravity of 4.5 (its
den-sity is 4.5 times that of water)
Description, Distribution,
and Forms
Barite occurs as vein fillings,
com-monly accompanied by metal
sul-fides; as residual deposits; and as
bed-ded deposits Rich vein deposits in
Mexico, Algeria, and Morocco have
been important sources of barite
Barite is highly insoluble, relative to
limestone and dolomite, and the
weathering away of barite-bearing
limestones and dolomites has left
sig-nificant and easily mined residual deposits in Geor-gia, Missouri, and Tennessee Bedded deposits of bar-ite are fairly common worldwide
History
A bedded deposit in Arkansas was the leading source
of barite from 1942 to 1982 In the late 1970’s,
U.S Government Printing Office, 2009.
160
500
44
65
150
55
615
100
140
Metric Tons
5,000 4,000
3,000 2,000
1,000 Vietnam
Turkey Russia Pakistan Morocco Mexico
United Kingdom United States
Other countries
Kazakhstan Iran India Germany China Bulgaria Algeria
4,400
95 250
1,000
85
50 65
World Mine Production of Barite, 2008
Trang 8mous reserves of bedded barite were discovered in
Nevada Important bedded deposits also occur in
Germany, France, Ireland, and other European
coun-tries
Obtaining Barite
Vein deposits of barite are thought to be of
low-temperature hydrothermal origin and associated
with igneous intrusion Residual deposits probably
are closely related to vein deposits in that barite is
ini-tially deposited in fractures in limestone and
dolo-mite (carbonate rocks) by hydrothermal processes or
deposited on the seafloor, where carbonates are
accu-mulating as volcanic exhalations react with
sulfate-rich seawater Later uplift, followed by weathering
and solution of the carbonate rocks, leaves rich
depos-its of barite in the carbonate rock residuum
The origin of bedded deposits is less obvious, but
research has indicated that they may occur where
oxygen-depleted, and therefore sulfate-poor,
barium-bearing seawater has mixed with and reacted with
normal, sulfate-rich seawater, a process that may
oc-cur where deep ocean waters are forced to the
sur-face, by strong deep water currents impinging on
con-tinental margins, to mix with shallow waters
Uses of Barite
Most of the barite produced is used in the petroleum
and natural gas exploration industry It is used to
in-crease the density of drilling fluid to counteract the
high pressures encountered in petroleum reservoir
rocks, thus preventing disastrous blowouts There are
many other important uses for barite, however It is
used in glass manufacture to homogenize the melt
and impart brilliance to the final product Barite is
also an important additive in many rubber and plastic
products Raw rubber and some plastics tend to be
soft and gummy Fillers, fine granular materials with
appropriate physical properties, add firmness, wear
resistance, mechanical toughness, and weight to the
final products In all, there are more than two
thou-sand uses for barite and barite-based chemicals in
in-dustrial processes and products
Barium is an effective gamma-ray absorber, and a
mixture of barium sulfate and water has been used to
render the human intestinal tract opaque to X rays
and thus visible on radiographs Barite compounds,
largely derived from barite, are also used to produce a
brilliant green color in fireworks
Robert E Carver
Web Sites Natural Resources Canada Mineral and Metal Commodity Reviews: Barite and Witherite
http://www.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/mms-smm/busi-indu/cmy-amc/content/2007/73.pdf U.S Geological Survey
Minerals Information: Barite Statistics and Information
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/
commodity/barite/
See also: Hydrothermal solutions and mineraliza-tion; Oil and natural gas drilling and wells; Residual mineral deposits
Belgium
Categories: Countries; government and resources
With few natural resources of its own, Belgium has profited from its location at the center of a highly indus-trialized area in Europe with several port cities that have made it one of the world’s largest trading nations.
The Country Belgium is located in Western Europe and borders France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the North Sea Along with the Netherlands and Luxembourg, Belgium has been historically part of the “Low Countries.” In some economic circles, these small countries are still connected and reported to-gether, as they have formed a sort of union referred to
as Benelux nations Belgium is a small country, about the size of the state of Maryland, but it boasts 66.5 kilo-meters of coastline It is centrally located, at the heart
of the European Union, with the majority of Euro-pean capitals within 1,000 kilometers of Brussels, the Belgian capital city, which is the headquarters of the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organiza-tion (NATO)
Belgium’s geography is varied for a small country, with flat coastal plains in the northwest near the North Sea that stretch into the rugged mountains of the Ardennes forest in the southeast near its borders with France In 2006, Belgium’s gross domestic prod-uct (GDP) was ranked eighteenth in the world
Trang 9Ser-Belgium: Resources at a Glance
Official name: Kingdom of Belgium Government: Federal parliamentary democracy
under a constitutional monarchy
Capital city: Brussels Area: 11,788 mi2; 30,528 km2
Population (2009 est.): 10,414,336 Languages: Dutch, French, and German Monetary unit: euro (EUR)
Economic summary:
GDP composition by sector (2008 est.): agriculture, 0.8%; industry, 23.2%; services, 76.1%
Natural resources: construction materials, silica sand, carbonates
Land use (including Luxembourg, 2005): arable land, 27.42%; permanent crops, 0.69%; other, 71.89%
Industries: engineering and metal products, motor vehicle assembly, transportation equipment, scientific
instruments, processed food and beverages, chemicals, basic metals, textiles, glass, petroleum, pharmaceuticals
Agricultural products: sugar beets, fresh vegetables, fruits, grain, tobacco, beef, veal, pork, milk
Exports (2008 est.): $371.5 billion
Commodities exported: machinery and equipment, chemicals, finished diamonds, metals and metal products,
foodstuffs, pharmaceuticals
Imports (2008 est.): $387.7 billion
Commodities imported: raw materials, machinery and equipment, chemicals, raw diamonds, pharmaceuticals,
foodstuffs, transportation equipment, oil products
Labor force (2008): 4.99 million
Labor force by occupation (2007 est.): agriculture, 2%; industry, 25%; services, 73%
Energy resources:
Electricity production (2007 est.): 82.94 billion kWh
Electricity consumption (2006 est.): 85.54 billion kWh
Electricity exports (2007 est.): 9.035 billion kWh
Electricity imports (2007 est.): 15.78 billion kWh
Natural gas production (2007 est.): 0 m3
Natural gas consumption (2007 est.): 17.39 billion m3
Natural gas exports (2007 est.): 0 m3
Natural gas imports (2007 est.): 17.34 billion m3
Natural gas proved reserves ( Jan 2006): 0 m3
Oil production (2007 est.): 8,671 bbl/day Oil imports (2005): 1.119 million bbl/day Oil proved reserves ( Jan 2006 est.): 0 bbl Source: Data from The World Factbook 2009 Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency, 2009.
Notes: Data are the most recent tracked by the CIA Values are given in U.S dollars Abbreviations: bbl/day = barrels per day;
GDP = gross domestic product; km 2 = square kilometers; kWh = kilowatt-hours; m 3 = cubic meters; mi 2 = square miles.
France
Netherlands
Belgium
Luxembourg
United
Kingdom N o r t h
S e a
Trang 10vices account for about 75 percent of Belgium’s GDP,
a surprisingly high number somewhat related to its
place as the headquarters of the European Union,
NATO, and other major organizations based in
Eu-rope Its workforce is highly educated and
multilin-gual The capital, Brussels, is home to more than one
million people and about fifty-four thousand
busi-nesses On its own, Brussels produces about 20
per-cent of Belgium’s GDP
Although Belgium has few natural resources of its
own, its location at the center of a highly
industrial-ized area in Europe with several port cities means that
it functions as a trading center for many goods Its
paucity of natural resources was supplemented
his-torically by its colonial possessions in the Belgian
Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo),
which provided raw materials such as cobalt, copper,
diamonds, cacao, and zinc Belgium’s economy
de-pends heavily on importing raw materials or other
goods that are finished or further processed and then
exported Historically, its most prominent natural
resource was coal, but in 1992, its coal mines closed
permanently, and, unless the price of coal increases
to the point of making it worthwhile to extract the
deeply embedded seams, the mines are unlikely to
re-open Belgium ranks fifteenth on the list of world’s
largest trading nations with about three-quarters of
its trading done with its European Union neighbors,
particularly Germany, the Netherlands, France, and
the United Kingdom Because of Belgium’s economic
reliance on trading and processing rough goods, its
economy is dependent on world markets and their
stability to a much higher degree than countries with
their own natural resources and independent
econo-mies
Coal
Historically, Belgium was a major producer and
ex-porter of coal Coal in Belgian coal mines, especially
in the Kempen and Sambre-Meuse Valley, was easy to
extract, and mining was a booming business In the
heyday of its coal-mining industry, Belgium imported
workers from other countries to keep the coal mines
operating However, after the easily accessible coal
had been extracted and the seams of coal ran farther
underground and into harder materials, continuing
to extract coal from these mines became
economi-cally inefficient Between 1957 and 1992, Belgium
shut down more than 120 coal mines, and unless the
price of coal rises to the point of making this coal
eco-nomically feasible to extract and export, it is unlikely that these mines will return to operation
Construction Materials Belgium is a source of construction materials such as silica sand, chalk, stone, and carbonates Chalk and limestone are mined in the regions surrounding Tournai, Mons, and Liège, where there is a cement in-dustry of some significance The glass manufacturing industry is also supported by sands from the Kempen-land area Pottery products and bricks are made from clays from the Borinage region Quarries also pro-duce stones such as specialty marble, dolomite, gran-ite, and sandstone
Diamonds Belgium is the leading country in the diamond trad-ing market Its port city of Antwerp is the diamond capital of the world, housing the leading diamond market in the world Rough diamonds are imported and then processed into finished diamonds in Ant-werp, where they are then traded and exported This city is also the leading diamond cutting area of the world, where, the traditional story says, the first dia-mond was cut in 1476 The diadia-mond cutting and trad-ing center called “the Diamond Quarter” near Cen-tral Station (the train station near the port) has been a growing, thriving entity since the sixteenth century Though the diamond processing arm of the trade is diminishing, diamond exports still account for about one-tenth of all exports from Belgium Nearly 85 cent of the world’s rough diamonds and about 50 per-cent of the finished (polished) diamonds in the world pass through this city In 2006, the United States ac-counted for about $2.8 billion of Belgium’s diamond exports, which amounts to about 20 percent of all Bel-gian exports to the United States Overall, about $39 billion of diamonds are traded through the city, which accounts for about 8 percent of all Belgium’s exports This diamond trade accounts for nearly 70 percent of the country’s positive trade balance and represents about 15 percent of Belgium’s trade with non-Euro-pean Union countries This prosperous business em-ploys, directly or indirectly, nearly thirty-five thousand people
Sugar One of Belgium’s fastest-growing exports is sugar from sugar beets In 2006, the exports of sugar from Belgium to the United States rose more than 5,000