Economic and political outline: United Kingdom

Jennifer Rudd/ November 5, 2008/ 7:08 p.m.

The United Kingdom has the 5th largest economy in the world and the 2nd largest in the European Union. In 2006, it was globally the second largest recipient of foreign direct investment. A highly developed, diversified, market-based economy with extensive social welfare services provides most residents with a high standard of living. It sounds crazy when thinking of it in terms of a recession and dropping. The unemployment rate is one of the lowest in Europe (estimated at 5.4% in 2007) and the Uk's skills base one of the best. It still faces two major challenges: to modernize its public services and to reform the pension system. This article gave get charts and graphs of the information provided so that you can actually see the difference and change.

One of the main topics that were talked about in this article was main sectors of industry. Agriculture sector contributes only 1% of the GDP and employs 2% of the active population, but is very productive. Cattle breeding is still the major agricultural activity, despite "mad cow" and "foot and mouth" disease crisis. Manufacturing industry is not very competitive and accounts for around 19% of the GDP. The sectors having good potential are pharmaceutical, aircrafts industry and defense. The services sector is the driving force behind the economy and contributes nearly 74% to the GDP. London is Europe's largest financial market place, at par with New York. This is definitely a huge deal and a ton of money that is involved.

The article talked in part of foreign trades but that sector of the country is not doing that great one because of the country itself and two because of the recessions that are happening all around the globe. I feel that this article put things into perspectives with statistics and for their own country. Seeing statistics in a chart or graph may, and I hope, has some repercussions on its government. I think that the article did a great job in narrowing down the information of what needs to take place such as facing two major challenges: dealing with the public services and the pension system. Narrowing down factors of a country and focusing on a couple a time may possibly be more effective in fixing a country.
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