The G20 – Some Relevant Facts…

With attention being focused on the G20 meeting in London, I thought it’d be a good time to share some interesting facts about the G20.

Let’s meet them all…

1. Argentina
2. Australia
3. Brazil
4. Canada
5. China
6. France
7. Germany
8. India
9. Indonesia
10. Italy
11. Japan
12. Mexico
13. Russia
14. Saudi Arabia
15. South Africa
16. South Korea
17. Turkey
18. United Kingdom
19. United States

The 20th member of the G20 is the European Union, comprised of the following countries:

1. Austria
2. Belgium
3. Bulgaria
4. Cyprus
5. Czech Republic
6. Denmark
7. Estonia
8. Finland
9. France
10. Germany
11. Greece
12. Hungary
13. Ireland
14. Italy
15. Latvia
16. Lithuania
17. Luxembourg
18. Malta
19. Netherlands
20. Poland
21. Portugal
22. Romania
23. Slovakia
24. Slovenia
25. Spain
26. Sweden
27. United Kingdom

Notice that the usual suspects of Britain, France, Germany and Italy are in essence represented twice.  Punching above their weight, some things will never change.

Surprising in their absence is such countries as Colombia (Narcotics), Israel (Amerika’s chief military exporter), Malaysia (one of the fastest yet volatile economies in the whole of Asia), New Zealand, Norway (second richest country in Europe, in terms of GDP), Switzerland (tax-haven!) and Venezuela (fastest growing oil supplier in the world – oh and the country that gave us Hugo Chavez).

So a total of 42 nations are represented, either directly or through the EU.  These nations account for 67% of the world’s population and 46% of its land mass, not including Antarctica.

The wealthiest of these nations is, by far, Luxembourg, with per capita purchasing power parity (PPP) of $85,100.  They are followed by the U.S. with per capita PPP of $48,000 and Ireland at $47,800.  The poorest, by far, is India at only $2,900 followed closely by Indonesia at $3,900.  Mexico’s is $14,400.  Among the rest of our major trading partners, China is the poorest at $6,100.  The rest are relatively wealthy with Canada at $40,300, Australia at $39,300, Germany at $34,800, Japan at $35,300, and South Korea at $26,000.

The most densely populated nations are Malta (3,295 people per square mile), South Korea (1,257), the Netherlands (1,010), Belgium (883), Japan (878) and India (869).  The least densely populated are Australia (7), Canada (8), Russia (22), Saudi Arabia (30) and Finland (40).  For reference, the U.S. has 85 people per square mile.

With the twelve nations less densely populated than the U.S., we had a trade surplus in manufactured goods of $30.9 billion in 2007.  With the 29 nations more densely populated, we had a trade deficit in manufactured goods of $466 billion in 2007.  (This is proof positive of the effect of population density in driving global trade imbalances.)

In per capita terms, the worst trade deficits in manufactured goods were with Ireland (-$4,306), followed by Estonia (-$2,132), Sweden (-$860) and Japan (-$778).  In per capita terms, our biggest trade surpluses in manufactured goods were with the Netherlands ($1,078), followed by Belgium ($896),  Australia ($622), Canada ($510) and Saudi Arabia ($270).

The large trade surpluses with the Netherlands and Belgium are an anomaly due to the Netherlands having the only deep-water port on the Atlantic coast of Europe (except for the Baltic states) and Belgium being right next door, both of them tiny countries at the cross-roads of EU commerce.  The unusually large deficit with Ireland is due almost entirely to pharmaceutical manufacturing by American companies taking advantage of enormous tax breaks offered by Ireland.

The G20 financial meeting is yet another of those glorified banquets focused on fixing the global financial crisis and economic melt-down.  Which as Chairman Brown cannot help to remind us, started in America.  Saying that though, most of the world blames America, though funnily enough no one complained about the enormous, persistent U.S. trade deficit that has propped up their own economies.  The G20 is dividing into two camps – the trade surplus nations and the trade deficit nations.  Both camps say they want to avoid protectionism.  Both camps agree that global trade imbalances lie at the root of the economic collapse.  The U.S. hopes to restore a balance by demanding that other nations like Japan, China and Germany boost their domestic consumption, making them less dependent on exports to the U.S.  But the EU fears the consequences of deficit spending.  The meeting promises to be a slug-fest, likely to end with nothing more than vague agreements and splits along the surplus/deficit line.  But agreeing on one thing…they’ll meet again for another banquet in six months…by which time, Chairman Brown might have been put out of his misery…