Economy of the Empire (Belhavia)

Economy of Belhavia
Currency	Belhavian shekel ($)
Fiscal year	Calendar year (1 January – 31 December)
Statistics
GDP	$6.997 trillion (Nominal: 3rd; 2015 est.)
GDP growth	4.89% (2015 est.)
GDP per capita	$51,918.73 (Nominal: 1st; 2015 est.)
GDP by sector	Primary (agriculture & mining): 6.3%, Secondary (manufacturing): 12.8%, Tertiary (services): 80.9% (2015 est.)
Inflation (CPI)	5.76% (2015 est.)
Population below poverty line	19.34% (2015 est.)
Gini coefficient	45.2
Labour force	90.46 million
Unemployment	5.6%
Main industries	Pharmaceuticals, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Finance & Banking, Insurance, Logging, and Light Industry.
Ease of Doing Business Rank	2nd
External
Export goods	Pharmaceuticals, Financial Services, Computer Technology, Capital Goods, Consumer Household Products, Natural Gas, Lumber, Timber, Medical Equipment.
Main export partners	Emmeria, FSOWCS, Belfras, Tippercommon, Rodarion, Arthurista, Temuair, Gratislavia, Basileria, Westonaria, Lion's Rock, Prestonia, Hornatyia, Nehaven, and Eagleland.
Import goods	Automobiles, Petroleum, Agrichemicals, Agricultural Products, Textiles, Wine, Fruits, Grains, Livestock, Rubber, Military Hardware, Apparel, Plastics, Precious Metals (Gold, Silver, Platinum).
Main import partners	Emmeria, FSOWCS, Anikatia, Tippercommon, Rodarion, Arthurista, Tarsas, Ulthrannia, Westonaria, Dacia, and Eagleland.
Public finances
Public debt	14.76% of GDP (2015)
Revenues	1.04955 trillion
Expenses	1.04863 trillion
Economic aid	N/A
Credit rating	AAA (Domestic) AA+ (Foreign) AAA (T&C Assessment) Outlook: Stable
Foreign reserves	$2.3 trillion
Main data source: Imperial Ministry of the Treasury (01/01/2015) All values, unless otherwise stated, are in Belhavian shekels.

The Belhavian economy is a free market capitalist system of free enterprise with minimal interference, direction, or intervention by the Imperial Government or other public authorities. Belhavia has a diverse post-industrialized economy, although in western and central Belhavia and throughout many of the Empire's colonies and protectorates, a high-tech industrial base, as well as agriculture and mining remains the primary source of income. The Empire's G.D.P. at purchasing power parity is the among the top in the world, with abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity. It has been consistently among the top three for highest per capita GDP.

Introduction

By the late 18th century, the Industrial Revolution had spread to the Empire. Emperor Harold IV, after signing the 1812 Constitution, instituted a massive industrialization program by liberalizing the economy to free up capital to invest in the nascent manufacturing and railroad industries. Belhavia is a powerhouse export economy, with globally-renown and cutting-edge information technology, telecommunications, and pharmaceutical sectors. Despite this, the Belhavian manufacturing and industrial base has survived globalization, though it has been a declining share of the overall Imperial economy since the late 1960s.

Belhavia is among the top six largest high-quality capital goods producers in the world. It is noted for a robust smartphone technology industry, with Roth Industries' "RothPhone" and "RothPad" much-sought-after smartphone platforms.

The highly-urbanized northern coast of Belhavia has a concentration of services-based enterprises, while central, western, and southern areas of the homeland are more rural, agricultural, and are where most mining sites and manufacturing infrastructure is located.

Much of Belhavia's advanced, high-tech manufacturing is centered around the production of durable, high-end capital goods (i.e. computers, machinery, equipment, vehicles, etc). Research and development is a crucial corporate sector that is a $569 billion industry. Many foreign companies outsource their R&D operations to the Empire because of it sterling reputation for effective research and testing expertise.

Despite these economic achievements, Belhavia has some structural vulnerabilities. It is a net importer of petroleum and automotive gasoline since the mid-1950s, despite hosting a small oil & gas industry. Economic inequality is particularly pronounced in rural western and southern towns where old low-skill manufacturing used to be located but has since left the nation to cheaper foreign markets. The shift towards more clean energy sources has the Belhavian energy sector with more instability, with a notable increase in power outrages after the harsh polar winter season in the arctic Far South and in areas where solar and wind power are the primary energy generators. The Empire is also dependent in many respects on agricultural imports from overseas, with limited shipping lanes to import such supplies from the north.

Economic Sectors

"The Big Three"

Belhavia's three largest industries are pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, and information technology. The largest Belhavian corporation, Roth Industries, is ubiquitous throughout both the Empire and the world. It is the leading brand name in Belhavia, and a major consumer brand in countries with extensive trade ties to the Empire, such as Anthor, Emmeria, former Western states, Arthurista, Lion's Rock, and Westonaria. The "all-Belhavian" consumer product is the Roth smartphone platform family, with its flagship gadgets being the "RothPhone" and the "RothPad."

Known as the "Three Giants" or "ITP" - "Info Tech, Telecom, and Pharma" in shorthand - these three industries create the bulk of white-collar professional positions in the Empire.

Finance, Banking, and Insurance

Belhavian Jewry served as the leading banking houses of the western world throughout the early modern period and into the modern era. Financial institutions in the Empire created new instruments and innovations that revolutionized public, corporate, and personal finance.

The financial sector in Provisa and Dakos serves most of the world, and is renown for its long tradition and high quality. Cultivated by long-standing Belhavian cultural attachment towards the profession, which is responsible for the dearth of financial taxation, including a lack of a capital gains tax and light corporate taxation, that enables the financial sector thrives in Belhavia.

Commercial and investment banks number in the high dozens, along with a bevy of hedge funds, private equity firms, savings and loan associations (S&Ls), credit unions, management investment companies and brokerage firms. Examples include firms such as the Goldman, Black, and Richman Group.

Energy and Natural Resources

The Empire has plentiful natural resources, with numerous mineral deposits in the centrally-located Carpathian Mountains, which has extensive mining towns that extract, refine, and produce industrial metals.

Besides numerous industrial metals, coal has been mined in the Belhavian Ross Mountains near the western border regions. Some raw materials needed for manufacturing are exported to other countries, though a majority of domestically-procured rare metals stay in the domestic production sector. Many blue-collar jobs are found in these sectors. Like most advanced, developed economies, blue-collar jobs are on the decline in both real terms and in wage growth. However, the nascent so-called "high-tech manufacturing," green energy, and specialized trade skills fields are on the rise, though they typically require more education than just a high school diploma.

Oil and natural gas deposits have been found in the polar south, though the amount of oil extracted is small enough that it is mostly consumed within Belhavia's domestic markets. However, natural gas supplies are plentiful enough that a modest export market exists for it on the regional economy.

The energy sector is unevenly spread among various energy sources, including both clean, renewable energy and petroleum-based energy. Natural gas accounts for 36% of the Empire's energy needs, followed by 33% by coal-fired power plants (although 23% of coal-using plants utilize "clean coal" technologies), 19% comes from nuclear power, while just 21% comes "pure" renewable sources: 1.3% tidal, 4.6% wind, 2% solar, 4.1% hydroelectric, and 7% geothermal (mainly in the polar south).

Logging is the largest primary-sector economic activity in Belhavia. Belhavia's largest non-services exports are timber and lumber. As with much of the Southern Continent, Belhavia has plentiful undeveloped woodlands, and has over the centuries been heavily involved in logging those forests to feed domestic and foreign market demand.

Agriculture

Central and northern Belhavia - along with colonial possessions such as Tobia, the Ross Archipelagos, and New Shelvoy - are the major agricultural-producing regions. In the prairie lowlands to the west of the Carpathian Mountain range, mainly cattle, goats, dairy products, and staple crops are grazed and grown.

Wheat, rapeseed (and other oil plants), sugar beet, barley, and oat are the primary crops raised in the northerly coastal areas and along the border region with the Jointly Administered Territories. Small family-owned farms are a cultural symbol of the proud Belhavian free enterprise tradition, with over 1.3 million individual registered farms under 6 hectares.

Belhavia's agricultural, agriscience, and biotechnology sectors have close ties with Emmerian and Western firms. Belhavia's top three importers of food, foodstuffs, and alcohol are Tarsas, followed by Emmeria, Ulthrannia, and Westonaria.

Transportation

In 2014, there was 6,789,034 km of serviceable roads in Belhavia, all of them privately-owned, operated, and maintained, except for the Imperial Military Freeway System, which is owned by the Imperial Government but operated and maintained by private Road Maintenance Companies (RMCs). There is 77,450 km of highway and inter-provincial freeways.

The transportation sector in the Empire was pegged at $944 billion dollars in 2010, employing over 3 million persons (1% of the overall Imperial population) in over 200,000 separate enterprises.

Belhavia has few light and commuter rail networks outside of its high-urbanized northern coast, where most of the Empire's busiest and populated cities lie. However, the Cross-National Rail Company, a major private rail operator, has a trans-Belhavia high-speed passenger rail service that begins in Freeport City, Freeport, connects to Provisa in the Central Plains, with separate lines that verge northwest to Raffenburg or northeast to Dakos. The Provisa line heads all the way down south to the city of Port Farfroyren, the largest metropolitan urban area in the so-called "Far South," bordering the Antarctic Ocean.

However, there are numerous commercial and shipping rail networks that transport goods and inputs from the Belhavian interior to the coast for export from the Empire's bustling northern ports. Over 78% of rail-lines in Belhavia are electrified.

Labor Force

The Empire-wide unemployment rate is 5.6%, down from a high of 9.7% during the height of the Recession of 2006. In Belhavia proper the rate is 4.9%, while in the colonies it is 6.3%.

The labor participation rate has rebounded from a precipitous recession plunge to hold steady at around 67.5%, up from 63.2% during the peak of the recession in 2008 and 2009. Pre-recession levels hovered around 66%.

Approximately 90,460,000 persons make up the civilian non-institutional population (meaning the population figures are not adjusted for seasonal variation), with a civilian labor force of 86,754,300.

Wealth

There are slightly over 500 individuals with $1 billion or more in net worth ("billionaires"), and over 9.5 million households of a net worth of $1 million dollars or more.

The richest persons in Belhavia are the Roth family, owners of the massive transnational corporation Roth Industries, the Imperial Family (House Solomon and its assorted relatives), the Gray family, owners of Roth Industries perennial arch-rival Gray Industries & Oil Consortium, the Kalian family, owners of Kalian Media Group, and the Zalleran family, owners of Zalleran Pharmaceuticals & Drug Company.