Economy
Portugal’s economy is based on industries such as textiles, clothing, and footwear. Major industries also include oil refineries, automotive, cement production, pulp and paper industry, and cork (of which Portugal is the world’s leading producer).
Spain’s mixed capitalist economy supports a GDP that on a per capita basis is 87% that of the four leading West European economies. The center-right government of former Prime Minister Aznar successfully worked to gain admission to the first group of countries launching the European single currency, the euro, on 1 January 1999. The Aznar administration continued to advocate liberalization, privatization, and deregulation of the economy and introduced some tax reforms to that end. Unemployment fell steadily under the Aznar administration but remains high at 9.8% as of August 2005.
The Italian economy has changed dramatically since the end of World War II. From an agriculturally based economy, it has developed into an industrial state ranked as the world’s sixth-largest market economy. Italy belongs to the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialized nations. It is a member of the European Union and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Italy’s economic strength is in the processing and manufacturing of goods, primarily in small and medium-sized family-owned firms.
mportant imports are machinery, fuel, and other products vital to the tourist industry, such as transportation equipment, live animals, food, tobacco, and chemicals. Exports also include chemicals and food. The European Community accounts for slightly more than three-quarters of foreign trade and most foreign investment.
Economic affairs in Cyprus are dominated by the division of the country into the southern area controlled by the Cyprus Government and the northern Turkish Cypriot-administered area.
Greece has a capitalist economy with the public sector accounting for about 40% of GDP and with per capita GDP at least 75% of the leading Eurozone economies. Tourism provides 15% of GDP. Immigrants make up nearly one-fifth of the work force, mainly in agricultural and unskilled labour. Greece is a major beneficiary of EU aid, equal to about 3.3% of annual GDP.
Defence: 1.9% of GDP.
GDP (2007): $250 billion.
Annual GDP growth rate (2007): 6.1%.
GDP per capita (2007): $11,989.
Natural resources: Oil, timber, natural gas, coal, salt, iron ore.
Agriculture (2007): Percent of GDP: 8.0%. Products: corn, wheat, potatoes, oilseeds, vegetables, livestock, fish, and forestry.
Industry (2007): Percent of GDP: 23.9%. Types: machine building, mining, construction materials, metal production and processing, chemicals, food processing, textiles, clothing.
Services (2007): Percent of GDP: 61.1%.
For centuries, Hungary has been an agricultural country, but since The Second World War it has become heavily industrialized. Through the 1970s and 1980s, industry was largely state-owned, and two thirds of agricultural output came from collective and state farms. Hungary’s economy underwent difficult readjustment in the 1990s, as it moved from producing goods chiefly for export to the USSR to developing a market-based economy and finding new trading partners.
Slovakia has mastered much of the difficult transition from a centrally planned economy to a modern market economy. The DZURINDA government made excellent progress during 2001-04 in macroeconomic stabilization and structural reform. Major privatizations are nearly complete, the banking sector is mainly in foreign hands, and the government has helped facilitate a foreign investment boom with business friendly policies such as labor market liberalization and a 19% flat tax. Foreign investment in the automotive sector has been strong.
