The Singaporean economy depends heavily on exports and refining imported goods, especially in manufacturing,[71] which constituted 27.2% of GDP in 2010[7] and includes significant electronics, petroleum refining, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences sectors. In 2006 Singapore produced about 10% of the world's foundry wafer output.[72] Despite its small size, Singapore has a diversified economy, a strategy that the government considers vital for growth and stability.
Singapore is the busiest transshipment port, third busiest port in terms of tonnage and second biggest container port. Since it's only exports, and not a trade balance, it makes perfect sense for Singapore to make the list. If Hong Kong would be counted seperatly from China, it would also make the list with ease for similar reasons. Belgium is also just included for similar reasons (Port of Antwerp) and I'm pretty sure the Netherlands is too (Port of Rotterdam).
This would also be the same as saying Florida exports a lot of oranges, or Valencia in Spain. Narrowing things down a specific region doesn't mean that you are discounting every other regions/sub-divisions contributions.
Also, it's nice to see that US exports are almost as huge as Chinese ones. It's popular (within America) to say these days that America doesn't make anything anymore. I've always known that was obviously BS, going around the world you see American stuff everywhere, but considering the trade imbalance and the fact that sometimes it seems 50% of everything on store shelves says "made in China" I was still surprised that it was so close.
The figures for European countries are skewed by the fact that they are part of the same economic zone yet independent. In other words, we don't count exports from California to Texas, but we do count exports from the Netherlands to Belgium.
I think the reason you find a lot of thing made in china in stores and that is because china tends to manufacture a lot of low value goods whereas american tends to focus more on high value goods such as cars (in general)
Surprised to see the UK on the list let alone in the top half considering how reliant our economy is on the service industry, what do we even make? Dysons and JCBs?
Why? Brazil might keep most of the things they produce themselves. Whereas Switzerland might import a lot as well as export. This is not a list of how much a country produces.
but after oil the amount of stuff they export drops off precipitously. Without consulting the Internet I believe that Saudi's top exports after oil include other byproducts of the same industry - natural gas and petrochemicals, dates, and previously sand and concrete though I think the last king put a stop to that on the grounds that it was damaging to the environment.
I don't really think this Quiz has anything to do with ports, since that really doesn't mean that the country really MANUFACTURES goods, but it just does make them pass, cashing on it, and that is a SERVICE. It should depend on the producing power of a country. IE Switzlerland, not a manufacturing country in itself, makes the list because of the huge corporations living under its banner.
The only one that surprised me was India being so low down. I assumed that with their ridiculous population growth and cheap labour they would be attempting to compete with China...
I think this should be updated. It has been 2 years. India has grown by 70 billion USD. So, it makes a pretty significant difference. And several other countries must have changed a lot too.
Not surprising when you drive on our highways. The right lane is mostly filled with trucks from all over Europe, traveling to and from Rotterdam Harbour.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore#Economy
Whaaaat?
Foreign license plate bingo is probably easiest played in the Netherlands ;)
Only landlocked country be like:
got everything but just WOW
JUST WOW
never expected Netherlands to be so high on this list.
they are such a tiny country
such a shocker!