The Netherlands imported $646 billion worth of goods from
the world in 2018.
From a continental perspective, more than half of the Netherlands' total imports by value in 2018 were purchased from the rest of Europe. Asian trading partners provided 29.2% of the Netherlands' imports, while 8.1% by value came from North American exporters. Smaller percentages came from Latin America (2.8%), excluding Mexico, the Caribbean, Africa (2.7%) and Oceania (less than 1%), led by Australia.
Given that the Netherlands has a population of 17.2 million people, its 2018 imports totaled $646 billion, which equates to about $37,700 in annual product demand for each person in the core EU country.
The following product categories represent the highest dollar value of Dutch import purchases in 2018. Also shown is each product category's percentage share of overall Dutch imports.
Mineral fuels including oil: $111 billion (17.2% of total imports)
Electrical machinery and equipment: $92.7 billion (14.3%)
Machinery including computers: $84.6 billion (13.1%)
Vehicles: $34.8 billion (5.4%)
Pharmaceuticals : $29.5 billion (4.6 percent)
Optics, technology, medical equipment: $26.9 billion (4.2 percent)
Organic chemicals: $17.8 billion (2.8 percent)
Plastics, plastics products: $17.8 billion (2.7 percent)
Steel and iron: $13.2 billion (2 percent)
Aluminum: $10 billion (1.6 percent)
The Netherlands' top 10 imports accounted for two-thirds (67.8 percent) of the total value of its purchases from other countries/regions.
Of the Netherlands' top 10 import categories, the value of imported pharmaceuticals grew the fastest, by 109.9% from 2017 to 2018
. Aluminum imports grew by 103.8 percent, the second highest growth in aluminum imports. Imports of the Netherlands under the category of mineral fuels (including petroleum) grew the fastest with a 70 percent increase, closely followed by imports of electrical machinery and equipment with a 64.6 percent increase.