Scandinavia is a strong economy with a strong focus on all segments. A striking example is Iceland, whose indicators show steady growth and the reforms adopted improve the standard of living.
Strong economies: review of Iceland’s performance
The unemployment rate in Iceland was 7.6%, which is a good indicator due to the recent crisis. Weakness in the economy can be considered inflation, which was 10%, and in recent years has fallen to 3-4%.
GDP per capita is $12.2 billion, analysts predict that it will increase by 2.3% next year.
It was only after World War II that Iceland began to pay attention to the industrial sector. Now it employs about 30% of the population. The mining industry is underdeveloped and represented by small volumes of production of brown coal, feldspar and pumice. To produce aluminium, other countries buy aluminium dioxide and then export the metal.
The basis of the manufacturing industry is the production of fish – canned food, supplies of freshly frozen fish and other products. There are ship repair enterprises for servicing the fishing fleet.
Besides these industries, residents are involved in a textile industry, metallurgy. Various electrical equipment and construction materials are produced.
Iceland has great potential for developing alternative energy sources. Hydropower generation volumes are estimated at 80 billion kWh per year. Currently only 6% of this resource is involved.
Geothermal energy is used for public utilities and greenhouse services.
Most of the imports are from the UK and Norway. Despite quite large local reserves of raw materials, production is only 70% financially and technologically sound. The amount of electricity produced for the year was 5 billion kW, where 95% is hydroelectric power.
Iceland is a small country with limited natural resources. Therefore, foreign trade is not well represented here, although in recent years this segment has received attention and introduced various measures for development. This has yielded results and the share of exports is gradually increasing. The main product that Iceland sells is fish and its products. In addition, the country sells aluminium, ferro silicon and agricultural products.
In Iceland, only 1% of the territory is suitable for the needs of an agricultural complex. 4,500 farms raise cattle, pigs, hens, Icelandic horses, sheep and other animals and birds. Attention is paid to crop production, and the wheat harvest has increased 20 times in 20 years.
There is no railway in Iceland, instead there is a well developed network of highways, sea transport, air travel.
