The Netherlands is a founding member of the European Union
Capital city: Amsterdam
Population: 16,715,999 (July 2009 est.)
Currency: Euro
Language: Dutch
The Netherlands has a prosperous and open economy, which depends heavily on foreign trade. The economy is noted for stable industrial relations, moderate unemployment and inflation, a sizable current account surplus, and an important role as a European transportation hub. Industrial activity is predominantly in food processing, chemicals, petroleum refining, and electrical machinery. A highly mechanized agricultural sector employs no more than 3% of the labour force but provides large surpluses for the food-processing industry and for exports. The Netherlands, along with 11 of its EU partners, began circulating the euro currency on 1 January 2002. The country has been one of the leading European nations for attracting foreign direct investment and is one of the four largest investors in the US. The pace of job growth reached 10-year highs in 2007, but economic growth fell sharply in 2008 as fallout from the world financial crisis constricted demand and raised the spectre of a recession in 2009.
GDP - composition by sector
agriculture: 1.7%
industry: 25.5%
services: 72.9% (2008 est.)
Source: CIA
Latest news on Dutch poultry
15 May 2012 - The Grando nest of Vencomatic has been designed to fit the needs of broiler breeders. An updated version of this nest is now available.
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14 May 2012 - Microban antibacterial technology is finding new applications in the hatchery sector, through an agreement that gives Dutch hatchery technology company, Pas Reform, sole use worldwide.
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10 May 2012 - Dutch poultry housing company, Vencomatic, has received the prestigious ‘Koning Willem I’ award 2012, in the category Small and Medium Sized Enterprises.
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08 May 2012 - After the commissioning of the first series of the OptiGrader 600 from Staalkat, a smaller capacity model has been added to the range: the Optigrader 400.
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08 May 2012 - The Prinzen Ovoset is an affordable solution for setting hatching eggs onto setter trays by a machine.
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08 May 2012 - The Mopack farmpacker of Moba has been on the market for several years. The newest addition is the Mopack 150 model with a capacity of 54,000 eggs per hour.
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04 May 2012 - US based CTB Inc. has reached an agreement to acquire Meyn Holding bv, the parent company of Meyn Food Processing Technology, from Altor 2003 Fund.
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25 Apr 2012 - Pierre Stals of Marel Stork passed away unexpectedly on Saturday 21 April.
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20 Apr 2012 - Schothorst Feed Research (SFR), which has small-scale and large-scale research facilities for poultry, has purchased 144 new ground-floor pens and 96 new balance cages, expanded the possibilities for poultry research further.
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17 Apr 2012 - Han de Laat has joined Kanters Special Products (KSP) as the new export manager for the Middle East and South east Asia.
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13 Apr 2012 - Despite the setback in the global economy during the last few years, hatchery automation specialist Viscon experienced a steady increase in the demand for hatchery automation systems.
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13 Apr 2012 - To obtain a good overall chick quality and uniformity in commercial hatcheries, chickens have to emerge from their eggshell in a time period up to 36 hours.
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06 Apr 2012 - Petersime has appointed Rudy Verhelst to join the sales and marketing department as product manager.
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03 Apr 2012 - Meyn Food Processing Technology has relocated to a new state-of the-art headquarters and manufacturing facility as of April 1st 2012.
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29 Mar 2012 - ForFarmers is taking over UK-based food group BOCM Pauls for €85 million and becomes the largest feed producer in Europe. Yesterday, Wednesday, March 28, 2012, the contract between the two parties was signed.
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29 Mar 2012 - Schothorst Feed Research will set up a training course with eight different modules focused on formulating feed for dairy, swine and poultry.
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20 Mar 2012 - The outbreak of avian influenza on a turkey farm in the South of the Netherlands has been confirmed to be of a relatively mild variety, H5N2.
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20 Mar 2012 - The European anti-competition authorities have approved the acquisition of Hendrix by the ForFarmers Group as announced on 16 November 2011.
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19 Mar 2012 - Avian influenza has been confirmed at a commercial turkey farm near the town of Kelpen-Oler, in the South of the Netherlands. All 42,700 turkeys were culled.
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16 Mar 2012 - Netherlands based feed cooperative Agrifirm and French integrator Doux have agreed on the purchase by Agrifirm of Doux' Lösten, Saxony, Germany based broiler feed plant. German competition monitoring authorities have approved the takeover.
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