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The Netherlands is a country in part reclaimed from the blue-black waters of the North Sea, an artificially created land, around half of which lies at or
below sea level. It's a country of unique and resonant images - the fertile, pancake-flat landscapes gridded with canals and interrupted by windmills and
church spires, all beneath huge, open skies. Every city in the country has its ornately gabled town houses, the greatest and most noble in Amsterdam, while
the bulbfields provide bold splashes of colour in springtime; in the west the long coastline is marked by mile upon mile of protective dune, backing onto
wide stretches of pristine, sandy beach.
A major colonial power, the Dutch mercantile fleet once challenged the English for world naval supremacy, and throughout its seventeenth-century Golden Age,
the standard of living (for the majority at least) was second to none. There have been a few economic ups and downs since then, but today the Netherlands
is one of the most developed countries in the world, small and urban, with the highest population density in Europe, its sixteen million inhabitants concentrated
into an area about the size of the US state of Maine. It's an international, well-integrated place too: many people speak English, at least in the heavily populated
west of the country; and most of the country is easy to reach on a public transport system of trains and buses, whose efficiency may make British and American visitors
weep with envy.
Successive Dutch governments have steered towards political consensus - indeed, this has been the drift since the Reformation, when the competing pillars of
Dutch society (originally the Calvinists and the Catholics) learnt to live with - or ignore - each other, aided by the fact that trading wealth was lubricating
the whole social structure. Almost by accident, therefore, Dutch society became tolerant and, in its enthusiasm to blunt conflict, progressive. These days, many
insiders opine that the motive behind liberal Dutch attitudes towards drug use and prostitution isn't freewheeling permissiveness so much as apathy, and the country's
avowed multiculturalism has been severely tested of late, with the shooting of Theo Van Gogh, as well as various racially motivated attacks, persuading many to
reassess the success of the Netherlands' consensual politics.
To find out more about how Export To Holland can help your business, please call us on +44 (0) 870 879 5315
or e-mail us at info@exporttoholland.co.uk
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