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**Chris** · 12-03-2016, 11:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Damien

There is a article here about trade: https://fullfact.org/europe/do-half-...rts-go-europe/

It's not unique to Rotterdam, other ports would have the same effect. It does inflate the trade into the EU but it actually could also effect imports from the EU as well:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.g...m-effect-.html

The giveaway is that if you take the stats at face value, the Netherlands is our third-largest trading partner, which is obvious bollards when you think about it.

The problem is, while it is obvious not everything we send in to Europort is destined for Dutch consumption, it's impossible to put a figure on how big the distortion is, because some of what we send there is indeed intended for the Netherlands, and some of it is for elsewhere in the EU, which means is is legitimate to include it in an overall figure for our exports to the EU.

If you exclude the Netherlands altogether, the percentage of our exports supposedly bound for the EU drops by 10 points. If you assume half of it is genuinely EU bound, then you knock 5 points off the total. We don't know precisely what the effect is, but given the supposed size of our exports to a nation of 16 million, we can say for sure that it does exist.