Industrial countries

Great Britain and USA

Great Britain

Great Britain is one of the world's seven industrialized countries. It has deposits of oil and gas produced in the North Sea, coal and limestone; land areas suitable for agriculture - 77%.
Mining plays a major role in the Great Britain’s economy. Oil and gas are produced on the continental shelf of the North Sea. Oil production is carried out using the most advanced drilling technology.
In manufacturing industry, the priority is given to the following industries:
- Transport machine building (12.4 % of the total industrial production), automobile manufacture (national companies and branches of foreign companies), shipbuilding, including the production of marine equipment and construction of drilling platforms), aerospace industry - the third in the world after the United States and France that offers civil and military aircraft, helicopters, "Rolls-Royce" aircraft engines, equipment for the European consortium Airbus Industry;
- Food industry (12.5% of total industrial output), including the production of the famous Scottish whisky, gin and milk;
- General engineering: production of agricultural machinery and machine tools, including the production of textile equipment (Great Britain - the world's seventh producer of machine tools in the world);
- Electronics and electrical engineering: computers, software, processors and supercomputers, telecommunications facilities (fiber optics, radars, etc.); medical equipment, appliances;
- Chemical industry (11% of total production): pharmaceutics (Great Britain is the world's fourth pharmaceutical manufacturer), agrochemicals, perfumes, new materials and biotechnology;
- Manufacture of metals (10.8% of total production);
- Pulp and paper industry.
The development of modern British industry is defined by the development of high technology. Great Britain has the highest scientific and technical potential in Europe. Great Britain ranks second in the world after USA in the number of Nobel prizes won by its scientists. Great Britain dominates in such field as electronics and telecommunications, chemistry, aerospace industry.
Construction industry is also developed in Great Britain: Disneyland Paris, Olympic facilities in Atlanta, airport in Hong Kong were built by British firms.
Service industry is presented by such industries as finance and tourism. 25% of GDP is composed of the financial services sector. It employs 12 % of labor reserves of the country, and London is a global financial center and financial capital of the world.
Energy sector of the country is represented by private companies.
Great Britain, as well as all the leading countries of the world, has a developed transport infrastructure. Opening of the Eurotunnel under the English Channel made Great Britain’s connection with the continent more stable.
Export consists of manufactured goods, fuels, chemicals, food.
 

USA

USA is one of the leading economies in the world, one of the largest in territory and population. USA is one of the most highly effective countries in the world. Progress in the development of economic processes in the United States has a significant impact on the world’s economy, directly affecting the economic cycle and economic situation in other countries, as well as the structure of international economic exchange. Development of reproduction processes in the U.S. economy is under the influence of growing internationalization, which is now taking place not only as a result of export of goods, services and capital, but also due to an unprecedented inflow of goods, services and capital from abroad.
The main characteristic features of the U.S. economy are:
high level of monopolization, production and geographic concentration;
wide variety of industries and agriculture: virtually all industries are developed;
large proportion of branches of the military and industrial complex;
significant orientation of manufactured products on foreign markets (USA is the largest exporter of engineering, chemical, textile, food, grain and tobacco products, etc.);
high level of production knowledge content, investments in science (one third of the world's research and experimental development costs accounts for USA), rapid development of new high-tech industries;
economic mechanism of the U.S. economy has a market basis, however any of the sectors of the economy strengthens the influence of state regulatory actions that are integrated into economic management mechanism.
U.S. industry has a large and well-equipped technical and material base. However, under conditions of an unstable economy, even businesses of the newest branches are underused; unemployment keeps growing. All states are developed, but usually two or three states stand out.
Position of USA in the global economy
Leading position of USA in the global economy is provided mainly by its superiority over other countries in size and wealth of the market, the level of scientific and technical potential, powerful and highly developed system of economic relations with other countries (trade, investment and banking capital).
Extremely high capacity of the domestic market provides USA with a unique place in the world economy. The highest GDP in the world means that the United States spends more than any other country on consumption and investment. The beginning of the 2000s was marked by a steady structure of the economy in which the predominant share of the production belonged to services.
Concentration of production in the industry takes place in the context of prevailing monopolistic structure, which determines the nature of economic organization.
The U.S. has the world's largest scientific and technical potential, which is a decisive factor of economic development and competitiveness in the global economy.
American corporations occupy the leading positions in the world in such areas as the production of aircraft and spacecraft, high power computers and software, communication tools, biotechnology, laser technology, etc.
According to the National Science Foundation, the U.S. gave 80% of the major innovations of the Western countries in 1975-1978, about 67% in 1978-1987, and about 57% in 1987-1999.
USA remains the world's largest manufacturer of high-tech products.
Another area, where the Americans hold a very strong position is provision with information services. This factor plays a very important role, as fast and high quality information provision has become increasingly important in determination of the entire production system’s efficiency. Currently, 75% of data banks available in developed countries are concentrated in USA.
United States has a special role in the functioning of the global economic complex.
 



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