The province of Groningen is the only province in the Netherlands where the regional economy will shrink in the coming year
by Matthijs van Houten
The shrinkage will mainly be caused by the winding down of gas production in the province. If you don’t include those figures, Groningen would neatly join the other provinces, where the economy is growing. This figures have been revealed by ING’s Economic Bureau.
If you include gas extraction, the economic contraction in Groningen next year will be 0.3 percent, which is the same as 2019. If gas extraction is not included, the economy in Groningen will increase by 1.6 percent and that is a fraction higher than the national average (1.5 percent). The Delfzijl region will be difficult in the coming year thanks to an unfavorable sector structure and population development.
Groningen will do better in 2020 than Drenthe and Friesland. In Friesland, economic growth is leveling off slightly from 1.1 percent in 2019 to 0.9 percent in the coming year. In Drenthe, economic growth in the past year was 0.9 percent. ING expects growth there to be 0.8 percent next year.
At the bottom of the list is Limburg, where the economy is rising by only 0.7 percent, according to ING. Flevoland will grow in 2020, ING expects, by 2.4 percent above average. There is a relatively large amount of activity in business services and, in addition, the population is by far the fastest growing of all the regions. The Flevoland population is above the national average for activity in the labor market and that means an extra boost to the economic dynamics, with wage increases and purchasing power improvement. In 2019, Utrecht (3.4 percent) showed the best growth figures. This was mainly due to a provincial reorganisation.
Image: The ING offices in Amsterdam. Image via INGGroup on Flickr. License here.
