At the small island of Iceland the climate despite its name is not cold all year round. It is temperate with mild winters and cool summers. Iceland is only 100,250 square miles and slightly bigger than Kentucky but the economy, trade and culture is different and the same of other larger countries. Iceland is located south of Greenland and in the North Atlantic Ocean. Iceland was settled in the late 9th centuries A.D. by the Scottish and Irish. Iceland was growing as a world power till 1875 when the volcano Askaja devastated Iceland’s economy spreading worldwide famine. This led to 20% of Iceland’s population to immigrate to Canada and the U.S. Iceland has not had an eruption as devastating since which helped them get to where they are today.
Iceland’s economics are based upon its fishing. With 5,000 km of coastline Iceland has taken advantage of its vast ocean with ports bringing in numerous amounts of fish. Iceland also has other resources such as hydropower, geothermal power and diatomite. Iceland’s main industries start o
ff with fish processing, aluminum smelting, ferrosilicon production, geothermal power and a little tourism. The GDP, or gross domestic product of Iceland, is over 6.85 billion. Its growth rate is about 4.3%. Iceland currently has an inflation rate of 3.5%. Iceland has 159,000 people in its workforce with 64% of them in services, 15% are in agriculture with 13% of that fishers or processors and other industries is 21%. Iceland has a rather low unemployment rate of 1%. Iceland is overlooked by foreign investors at times because of its poor infrastructure. Iceland has no railways at all. One fourth of its highways are unpaved making it impossible for trucks, or other transporters on land, to travel. Iceland has 86 airports which would not seem to bad but yet only 13 are paved. Iceland has good fishing and coastal trade but because of its poor infrastructure it makes it hard for countries to export and import on the dry land of Iceland.
Iceland, being an island, international trade becomes very important. They have a negative balance
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