Economy
See also: Mining in LimburgIn the past peat and coal were mined in Limburg. In the period 1965–1975 the coal mines were finally closed. As a result in the two coal mining areas, Heerlen-Kerkrade-Brunssum and Sittard-Geleen, 60,000 people lost their jobs. A difficult period of economic re-adjustment started. The Dutch government partly eased the pain by moving several government offices (including Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP and CBS Statistics Netherlands) to Heerlen.
The state-owned corporation that once mined in Limburg, DSM, is now a major chemical company, still operating in Limburg.
Other industries include a car factory (in Born), Océ copiers and printers manufacturers in Venlo and a paper factory in Maastricht. There are four beer breweries.
Traditionally the southern part of Limburg has been one of the two main fruit growing areas of the country. Over the last some four decades however large fruit growing areas have been replaced by water, as a result of gravel quarrying near the river Meuse.
Tourism is an essential sector of the economy especially in the hilly southern part of the province. The town of Valkenburg is the main centre.
Since about 2005, when the two provincial newspapers "De Limburger" and "Limburgs Dagblad" merged, the one left is carrying both names.
Read more about this topic: Limburg (Netherlands)
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“Everyone is always in favour of general economy and particular expenditure.”
—Anthony, Sir Eden (1897–1977)
“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Quidquid luce fuit tenebris agit: but also the other way around. What we experience in dreams, so long as we experience it frequently, is in the end just as much a part of the total economy of our soul as anything we “really” experience: because of it we are richer or poorer, are sensitive to one need more or less, and are eventually guided a little by our dream-habits in broad daylight and even in the most cheerful moments occupying our waking spirit.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)