Capital: Amsterdam; The Hague is the seat of government

Population: 15,807,641 (July 1999 est.)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 18% (male 1,475,606; female 1,410,088)
15-64 years: 68% (male 5,482,193; female 5,288,948)
65 years and over: 14% (male 875,847; female 1,274,959) (1999 est.)

Economy—overview: This prosperous and open economy is based on private enterprise with the government's presence felt in many aspects of the economy. Industrial activity features food processing, petroleum refining, and metalworking. The highly mechanized agricultural sector employs only 4% of the labor force, but provides large surpluses for export and the domestic food-processing industry. As a result, the Netherlands ranks third worldwide in value of agricultural exports, behind the US and France. Sharp cuts in subsidy and social security spending since the 1980s helped the Dutch achieve sustained economic growth combined with falling unemployment and moderate inflation. The economy achieved a strong 3.7% growth in 1998; a dip in the business cycle probably will cause the economy to decelerate to slightly over 2% growth in 1999. Unemployment in 1999 is expected to be less than 5% of the labor force, and inflation probably will decline. The Dutch joined the first wave of 11 EU countries launching the euro system on 1 January 1999.

GDP: purchasing power parity—$348.6 billion (1998 est.)

GDP—real growth rate: 3.7% (1998 est.)

GDP—per capita: purchasing power parity—$22,200 (1998 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 2% (1998)

Industrial production growth rate: 2.4% (1998)

Telephones: 8.431 million (1998 est.); 3.4 million cellular telephone subscribers (1998 est.)

Telephone system: highly developed and well maintained; system of multi-conductor cables gradually being supplemented/replaced by a glass-fiber based telecommunication infrastructure; Mobile GSM-based mobile telephony density rapidly growing; third generation Universal Mobile Telecommunications System expected for introduction by the year 2001
domestic: nationwide cellular telephone system; microwave radio relay
international: 5 submarine cables; satellite earth stations—3 Intelsat (1 Indian Ocean and 2 Atlantic Ocean), 1 Eutelsat, and 1 Inmarsat (Atlantic and Indian Ocean Regions)

Radio broadcast stations: AM 3 (relays 3), FM 12 (repeaters 39), shortwave 0

Radios: 14 million (1994 est.)

Television broadcast stations: 15 (in addition, there are five low-power repeaters) (1997)

Televisions: 7.6 million (1994 est.)