Friday, 8 January 2021

BRITISH ECONOMY: LET'S FIND OUT MORE ABOUT IT

 

 


Hi guys and welcome back to our blog, I’m Giacomo, aka James,  and today we’re going to analyze some facts about British economy, like the economic performance, trade, natural resources and so on. Let’s discover more about how it works!


Economic performance

Britain is a modern and developed country that has a mixed economy and the private sector is the most important. The public sector changes over the past two decades because the government has reduced public ownership and contained the growth of social welfare programmes. The British economy is one of the strongest in Europe thanks to the high GDP*, low levels of inflation, unemployment and interest rates. However the British economy has also negative aspects like inequality, high poverty rate and, compared to the rest of Europe, weak social and public services. In addition, around 10% of the GDP comes from energy resources.

 *GDP = total value of all the products and services a country produces

Trade

 In British economy, trade is very important, in fact the UK is the fifth largest trading nation in the world, the second largest exporter of services and the sixth of goods.

Natural resources

We have to say that in recent years the UK’s farming community faced many problems like the mad cow disease as BSE epidemic, the outbreak of foot, severe flooding and GM crops. Dairy farming is concentrated in the western half of Britain, that provides milk for the 400 different types of cheese of which the most famous are Cheddar and Stilton, also known as «king of cheese».

In the UK fishing is very important because it provides about 70% of domestic need and is source of employment and income. The major products are salmon, trout and shellfish. Even so, the UK fishing industry is in decline because there is an overexploitation of fisheries in the North Sea. For this reason, EU has applied some measures to stop the decline like limiting the number of days a month that fishermen can spend at sea.

 


Energy Resources

Energy Resources in Britain accounts for the 10% of the GDP, one of the highest shares of any industrial nation. The main resources are oil and gas, which accounts for about 75% of total UK energy consumption. There was a problem about radioactive waste when some of the nuclear stations were privatized and stopped being productive. It was one of the most serious pollution issues for years.

Britain is an island, therefore,  it’s suitable for producing alternative energy from wave to wind, in fact wind farms should be able to supply nearly 5% of the national electricity requirements in a few years.

 


Industries

 Over the last 50 years industry has declined in importance in the UK because of the employment falling. This has contributed to the striking differences in social and economic composition between the North and the South. Even so, Britain remains an important manufacturing country. In recent years the production has expanded into communications equipment, including fiber optics, computers, machine tolls and robots. Growing industries include paper products, pharmaceutics, rubber and plastics.

The main industries in the UK are industrial and scientific equipment, machine tools, shipbuilding, aircrafts, chemical and electronic products, computers, food processing, clothes.

So guys, this was my post about British economy.  I’m truly interested in this topic, so I hope you will enjoy it!

Let me know what  you think about it and leave your feedback in the comments.


Giacomo, 5sc

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