International business environment
The Netherlands, long Europes trading crossroads, is an obvious choice to locate a pan-European operation: ever since the domicile of the worlds first multinational (the Dutch VOC), until the location of global and European headquarters, for example Shell, Unilever, Philips, IKEA, EADS and ING have their global HQ in the Netherlands, Nike, Tata, Sabic, Sara Lee, Starbucks and Cisco have European headquarters in the Netherlands.
The countrys pro-business environment creates a gateway to Europe that helps international companies succeed throughout the world. An international outlook and openness to foreign investment is firmly engrained in the Dutch culture (Netherlands ranks 6 in FDI inward and ouwtard, see graphs), and this has yielded a wealth of world-class business partners who know how to deal with global business challenges in todays financial services industry.
| Mayor net exporters of capital in 2009 | ||
| ranking | country | amount |
| 1 | China | 23,40% |
| 2 | Germany | 13,30% |
| 3 | Japan | 11,70% |
| 4 | Norway | 4,80% |
| 5 | Russia | 4,70% |
| 6 | Switzerland | 3,60% |
| 7 | Korea | 3,50% |
| 8 | Taiwan | 3,50% |
| 9 | Netherlands | 3,40% |
| 10 | Singapore | 2,80% |
| 11 | Kuwait | 2,80% |
| 12 | Malaysia | 2,40% |
| 13 | Sweden | 2,10% |
| Other economies | 18% | |
| Source: IMF 2010 Global Financial Stability Report | ||
| Competitive index | ||
| ranking | country | amount |
| 1 | Switzerland | 5,63 |
| 2 | Sweden | 5,56 |
| 3 | Singapore | 5,48 |
| 4 | United States | 5,43 |
| 5 | Germany | 5,39 |
| 6 | Japan | 5,37 |
| 7 | Finland | 5,37 |
| 8 | Netherlands | 5,33 |
| 9 | Denmark | 5,32 |
| 10 | Canada | 5,30 |
| 11 | Hong Kong SAR | 5,27 |
| 12 | United Kingdom | 5,25 |
| 13 | Taiwan, China | 5,21 |
| 14 | Norway | 5,14 |
| 15 | France | 5,13 |
| Source: World Economic Forum 2010 | ||