7th blog on France's economy..

I've been looking around on the internet for some information on the economy of France. I came across this site, nickelinstitute.org, that caught my attention and I thought it would be interesting to write about it for this week's blog. I looked back on my notes and remembered learning about multiplier effect. I decided to research multiplier effects in France and came across this piece of information.

I did not know this but on January 1st, 2004 there was a nonprofit organization created called Nickel Institute which includes 24 companies that make up 90% of the world's annual nickel output. This organization stands for recycling and reusing of nickel in the most environmentally best way. A few ways this is done is by creating partnerships, promoting the production, and earning trust of the stakeholders. Members of this organization include 24 of the world producers of nickel.

What makes nickel so important? Nickel is very important to parts of Europe. 85% of this nickel goes into other mixes of metal that in the end creates metal that endures all types of temperatures, has strength, and corrosion resistance which creates stainless steel. The reusing of nickel makes this stainless steel which is extremely helpful in many environments such as, homes, medical fields, and where food is processed.

Now, how does nickel play a role on France? Between the place where the raw nickel is imported, the place where nickel is formed into stainless steel,and all other industries having to do with nickel has created a total added-value of 6 billion Euro per year. Because of nickel imports and other uses of nickel, there are 105,000 French workers that rely on nickel and these industries for employment.

Some statistics about nickel and France: In 2002, France used 90,000 tons of nickel, representing 13% of all of Europe's nickel use. Due to improvements over the 20 years, France has had many new uses for nickel and at a growing percent of 3% a year for the demand of this metal. There are markets in France that rely on this nickel which provides a job to about 50,000 people and 27,500 jobs for this country's economy. Because of the importance of this metal it has caused an effect allowing people of France to have jobs and the need of workers have increased, as well.
Hope this little bit of information was informative!

6th post for the economy of France

Moving right along to my fifth blog on the economy of France. Since this week we discussed different things about money, I think it would be interesting to discuss the currency in France.

At one time France's currency was once called Franc but in 1999 they changed it to the more commonly known Euro. Along with a few other countries they did this to have a more common and well-known currency throughout Europe. In the beginning the value of the Euro was a little higher than the US dollar but after a couple years, in 2001, the Euro just was not as valuable, so it lowered. The lower the value of the Euro is, the more inexpensive products are in those areas. To keep this going, The European Central Bank, the United States Federal Reserve, and the Bank of Japan worked on lowering the value of the Euro as much as possible.

Although Great Britain did not give into changing their currency to the common Euro, twelve countries did. These countries include Germany, Spain, Finland, Luxembourg, Ireland, Holland, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Greece, Portugal and of course, France. Back when the Euro was launched, the transformation has left the country going through floating exchange rates where basically the rates are always fluctuating and were not always fixed. In 2001 though, they went to make Euro the official currency which will make the flow of everything work alot more smoothly.

I got this information from nationsencyclopedia.com and I came across a chart from forecasts.org that shows the US dollar to Euro Currency exchange rate! Sorry the chart is a little cut off. I didn't know how to make it all show !

5th post on the Economy of France

I think for this next blog I'll write about the what makes up the trade in France and some facts that I've found throughout the internet.

As big as France's economy is, I think that their trades help them grow to that point. According to economywatch.com, France's economy plays such an important role world wide and because of its products and exports the whole world benefits from them. Needless to say, I guess it makes sense that France is the third largest trader in the European Union. When people think of France they may think of the luxurious life, high end fashion, the country of love, maybe. But I know for sure, I would have never imagined that France was incredibly abundant in their farm crops. This country has a large amount of wheat, wine, and cheese which makes it the second largest exporter in the whole world. Perhaps, this is why it seems French wine is such a must to have when one visits this country! Out of what makes up the whole European Union, France makes up 25% of the total agriculture products and includes 2.5% of the GDP under the agriculture sector. In order to continue growth the government will provide a certain amount of money in order to assist with France's GDP and later assist with trading.

France has partners in trading which consist of the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Andwhen it comes to commodities they trade many items for example aircraft, transportation equipment, steel, iron, and many more.

Some statistics from the website mentioned above show some percentages on imports from different countries. It is not up to date but atleast it gives an idea of how things are over there.

In 2005, the main country that was used to export goods would have been Germany (14.7%) and for imports of 2005 would have been Germany (18.9%) also followed by Belgium (10.7%). Also some numbers I found from this website for 2005 would be the worth of the goods that were exported and imported. Imported goods were worth up to $471.36 billion with $439.22 billion for exported goods. I hope this was informative and you all were able to grab a thing or two out of it!

Oh, I searched Google images and came across this little graph. Although it represents Germany, if you look you can see how one of its closest partners is France! Sorry it was a little cut out, but atleast you can get an idea!

Third post for the Economy of France

Moving right along for my third post on the economy of France for my macroeconomics class. Since we discussed unemployment this past week in class, I thought it would good to look up information and write about the unemployment of France.
I found a website that included some exact information we discussed in class. According to tradingeconomics.com, it seems that France's unemployment rate is pretty high. This website discusses what is covered in our notes that the work labor has a 10% unemployment rate. And the term work labor means those that are working or looking for it and the non labor would include those that are not looking, those that are affiliated with the military and those who are in institutions. The unemployment rate has only increased because according to another website, dallasfed.org with an article titled "Why is French Unemployment So High?", in 2001 the percentage was around 9% and now it is currently at 10%. If someone is signed up for unemployment in the U.S. it usually lasts for several months but in France it can last up to four and half years. In my opinion, I think this is way to long to be giving out benefits to people that are unemployed. Now how is France trying to fix all this? According to dallasfed.org, there was a study done which insisted that France should really lower the time allowed for unemployment benefits and become more strict on who should be allowed these benefits.
The government is trying harder to have unemployed people look for jobs and the French economist has said that France should strengthen the efforts to have it strongly required to have these people search for jobs if they want to obtain benefits. I hope this was a little helpful to everyone!
Oh, above are a couple charts to compare France's unemployment rate within the past few years and one comparing it to the United States(although the one with the U.S. is not quite up to date). I also got these graphs from both of the sites that I mentioned above.