The Netherlands is situated in the Western Europe, is bordering with Belgium and Germany and a big part of the country has access to the North Sea. Its geographical position helped The Netherlands becoming an important transportation hub in Europe. The Netherlands is a relatively small country with a population of around 16,555,000. Nevertheless, the country diachronically played an important role in the political and economical status quo of the European Continent. It was a founding member of NATO and the EEC (now the EU), and participated in the introduction of the euro in 1999. The Netherlands has a prosperous and open economy, which depends heavily on foreign trade. In the period between 2007 and 2008 the Dutch economy reached a historical peak but economic growth, fell sharply in 2008 as fallout from the world financial crisis constricted demand. The aforementioned situation continued and in 2009.

The economic situation was reverted in the 3rd quarter of 2009, as according to Statistics Netherlands’ estimation; the Dutch economy shrank by 3.7% in the 3rd quarter of 2009 compared with the same quarter last year. This decrease is considerably smaller than the decrease in the first half of the year. Actually, this was the 1st quarter with a positive quarter-on quarter growth, following four negative quarters. 

The positive tendency of the Dutch economy is also highlighted by the volume of exports and imports. The volume of exports of goods and services was 8.1% smaller in the 3rd quarter of 2009 than in the same quarter of the previous year. Even though this should be regarded as a relatively large decrease, it is much smaller than the decrease that the Dutch economy faced in the two preceding quarters, when exports were around 12% lower. The relative improvement was seen in both exports of Dutch products and re-exports. Imports of goods and services were 9% lower than one year previously. The two main import goods that were down were consumer durables and investment goods.

The unemployment rate of the country was not in accordance with the other macroeconomic statistics as it continued to increase. The number of employee jobs was 143,000 down in the 3rd quarter of 2009 compared with the figures of the last year. This 1.8% decrease is much larger than in the 2nd quarter. The main reason behind this increase is that the delayed effects of lower production levels are now being felt in employment.

Despite the fact that the Dutch economy is doing relatively better than the two previous quarters of 2009 this has not significantly improved internal consumption. Households, in the 3rd quarter of 2009, spent 2.6% less than in the 3rd quarter of 2008. This decrease is almost the same as in the two previous quarters. Spending on expensive durable goods was down substantially. Additionally, consumers spent less on home furnishings and consumer electronics and sales of new cars were much lower than twelve months previously. Households also spent much less in hotels, restaurants and on air travel. The only spending category that increased was the government consumption that was 3.6% higher than in the same period last year. The two rising spending categories was, care and public administration.

The same tendency was noticed in investment as spending dropped in the aforementioned domain by 14.4% in the 3rd quarter compared with last year. This decrease is slightly larger than in the 2nd quarter. Spending on machinery and transport equipment and on residential and non-residential buildings fell strongly. One notable exception was investment in infrastructure projects that are often commissioned by the government.