Agriculture has traditionally been the islands’ chief income source based on sugar cane, fruits, cotton, root-vegetables and vegetables. Its world-class top brands include rum and Curaçao licorice, named after the island nation.
Oil and its byproducts account for over 95 percent of Bonaire’s and Curacao’s exports. Rice, sportswear and other manufactured items are also standouts. The nation also exports good deals of potatoes.
Oil and its byproducts embraced 85 percent of all annual imports and exports back in the 1980s. Fuels, machinery and manufactures also comprised a good chunk of all trade operations, especially in terms of corporate equipment, telecommunications, hotel supplies, machineries and foodstuffs.
On the top of the list, the oil refinery stands for the islands’ main industry. However, there are other such industries as food-canning and brewing, tobacco, building materials, shipyards, rubber, fabrics, rum, salt, plastics and printed materials, that also play an economic role worth mentioning.Tourist industry has improved dramatically in recent years by increasing the availability of hotel rooms and bettering infrastructure on such smaller islands as Bonaire, Saba and St. Eustatius. Curaçao and St. Marteen are both harbingers in this sector for tourism stands for one of its top moneymaking sources.
In 1993, the Antilles’ GDP per-capita ratio was $7,800 and the overall GDP reached $2.1 billion. Inflation rate was fixed at 1.4, 2.1, 1.8, 2.8 and 3.6 percent from 1992 to 1996, respectively.
Fishing is a traditional activity that carries on to bear part of the economic brunt regardless of the decrease in fish schools.
In the late 19th Century, gasoline and naphtha reserves were considered a burden since their demand was almost non-existent. Demand for kerosene also plummeted as electricity generation and lighting were steadily on the rise. Nonetheless, the invention of the automobile sent gas demand skyrocketing and so was the need to pump up more crude oil.Agriculture was also a key economic player for the islands. Cotton, sugar cane, vegetables and other commodities are grown. However, the underpinnings of the island’s economy changed altogether in the early 20th Century when oil giant Shell mounted an oil refinery in Curaçao with an aim at treating Venezuelan oil coming from Maracaibo.The following decades witnessed a diversification of the refinery’s activities, thus turning it into the engine of the Antilles’ economics. The biggest refineries are in Aruba and Curaçao. Oil and its spin-offs amounted to 85% of the annual import and export benefits combined in the past years.From the 1970s on, tourism strengthened as a major moneymaking economic sector, a situation that urged the islands to provide itself with the necessary infrastructure. The ever-growing flow of visitors turned the cities of Willemstad and Philipsburg the huge financial and tourist hubs they are today. Overseas communications hinge on maritime ports and Willemstad juts out as one of the best locations in the whole Caribbean for both maritime port and airport. Curaçao also features boat-repairing shipyards. Food-canning and brewing industries also play an important role, and so do tobacco, manufacture of building materials, shipyards, rubber manufacture, fabrics, rum, salt mines, plastics and printing materials. Curaçao produces calcium phosphate.
Dutch airline KLM is the country's number-one airline. There are no railroads and just 25.5 phones per 100 inhabitants(1993). Power generation is 110/120v and 50Mhz. There's a main road in Saba built without heavy machines between 1933 and 1947. Television came to Saba in 1965 and round-the-clock electricity generation was first installed in 1970. Curacao has 950 kilometers of roads.
