The above headline and article from the BBC surprised me not because of China’s advance, but because I didn’t know that Germany was the world’s top exporter.

So I checked Wikipedia and found the following data:

1	Germany	$ 1,498,000,000,000	2008 est.
2	China	$ 1,435,000,000,000	2008 est.
3	United States	$ 1,291,000,000,000	2008 est.
4	Japan	$ 746,500,000,000	2008 est.
5	France	$ 601,900,000,000	2008 est.
6	Italy	$ 546,900,000,000	2008 est.
7	Netherlands	$ 533,200,000,000	2008 est.

This surprised me again, because The Netherlands, where I live, has about a third of the exports of China. China has 1.3 billion people, we have 16.5 million. What would happen if we took population into account with the above top seven exporters?

Average dollar exports per person:

	Germany	$/p 18294
	China	$/p 1075
	United States	$/p 4187
	Japan	$/p 5853
	France	$/p 9249
	Italy	$/p 9080
	Netherlands	$/p 32157

The export per capita for The Netherlands is phenomenal, nearly eight times that of the U.S., and thirty times that of China. Top Dutch exports to the U.S.:

1. Other petroleum products …US$4.2 billion (24.2% of Netherlands to U.S. exports, up 34% from 2005)
2. Service industry machinery & trade tools … $1.13 billion (6.5%, up 50.7%)
3. Wine & related products … $1.08 billion (6.2%, up 15.8%)
4. Fuel oil … $840 million (4.8%, up 62.6%)
5. Other scientific, medical & hospital equipment … $625.1 million (3.6%, down 4%)
6. Medicinal, dental & pharmaceutical preparations … $610.3 million (3.5%, up 22%)
7. Industrial organic chemicals … $532.8 million (3.1%, up 0.6%)
8. Nuclear fuel materials & fuels … $483 million (2.9%, up 97.9%)
9. Semi-finished iron & steel mill products … $400.8 million (2.3%, up 31.2%)
10. Other industrial machinery … $355.2 million (2%, up 13%)

A quick look at this list suggests that a third of Dutch exports are fossil fuels.