Yearbook 2012
Luxembourg. The debt crisis in euro area countries also echoed in prosperous Luxembourg when the credit rating agency Moody’s in July warned that the country risked a downgrade from the highest credit rating. The reason was that the Luxembourg economy was largely dependent on the financial sector.
Luxembourg’s throne heir, 31-year-old heiress Guillaume, got engaged in April with Belgian Countess Stéphanie de Lannoy. The couple wed in October in Luxembourg-Ville.
In February 1996, Prime Minister Adolfas Slezevicius was replaced by Mindaugas Stankevicius, who was already replaced by Gediminas Vagnorius in December. During this period, inflation fell from 35 to 14% and gross domestic product increased by 3%.
- AbbreviationFinder.org: Provides most commonly used acronyms and abbreviations for Luxembourg. Also includes location map, major cities, and country overview.
The 1996 parliamentary election was won by the opposition, which allowed Landsbergis to take over the leadership of the National Assembly. This cohabitation with the former communists (who held the presidential post) ended with the 1997-98 elections, when Valdas Adamkus was elected by a small margin to the president in the second round of elections ahead of his rival, the former communist Arturas Paulauskas. The 71-year-old Adamkus had lived over 40 years in the United States and had been a member of the Conservative Party. His campaign was based on a consolidation of the market economy, greater rapprochement with the United States and Lithuania’s accession to NATO.
In October 1999, Finance Minister Jonas Lionginas and Minister of Economy Eugenijus Maldeikis resigned in protest of the government’s approval of the sale of the state oil company to the North American company Williams International. The sale transferred control of the refinery and export terminal to the foreign company. As a result of widespread protests against this sale, Prime Minister Rolandas Paksas was forced to resign in October. Instead, the president appointed Deputy Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius and continued the deal.
That same month, Parliament approved a border agreement with Russia – the first since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Above all, the agreement established access roads to Kaliningrad – a Russian enclave in the southeastern corner of Lithuania with no direct connection to the other Russian Federation. In December 1999, the EU decided to include Lithuania on the list of countries eligible to join the Union. This was considered a victory by the Lithuanian government.
Population 2012
According to countryaah, the population of Luxembourg in 2012 was 566,630, ranking number 169 in the world. The population growth rate was 2.220% yearly, and the population density was 218.8189 people per km2.
LUXEMBOURG. – The last census, in January 1948, recorded (with a decrease compared to 1935) a population of 290,992 residents, Over 38,370 foreigners (almost half German and 1/4 Italian). An evaluation at the end of 1958 indicates an increase to 317,875 residents, But this number also includes foreigners with permanent residence (36,914), who established the headquarters of large European economic and federative organizations, such as the ECSC, in the Grand Duchy (since 1952) has been quite high in recent years. As a consequence of these functions, as well as a reflection of the great impulse marked by the steel industry, between 1948 and 1958 there was a phenomenon of swelling of the main centers (in which 48% of the total population lives today).2 and 68.833 residents), Luxembourg (666 and 153.019), Diekirch (1157 and 55.085), Grevenmacher (2586 and 36.650). The population of Luxembourg city increased in 1958 to 70,158 residents (from 62 thousand it had in 1948) and, in the major iron and steel centers, Esch reached 28,832 residents (from 26,000), Differdingen i 17,946 (from 7,000), Düdelingen i 14,932 (from 12,000) and Petingen i 11,520 (from 5,000).
In economic life, the decrease in value of agriculture continued, which before the war occupied 1/5 of the total population, and today instead employs only 12% and contributes only 9% to national production. Its productions remain mostly stationary, but the wine production is declining (from 81 thousand hl as an average in 1934-38 to 70 thousand as an average in 1955-57) while grass surfaces are increasing considerably (1/4 of the country) and farms: in 1958 there were 132,000 cattle and 116,000 pigs, one and the other strongly increased in the post-war period (horses: 7,700, and sheep: 2,200 in significant decline). Therefore in the expansion phase is the production of milk and especially that of butter and cheeses, which are in double quantity of the pre-war period (50,000 q for butter).
In any case, the great basis of the wealth of the Grand Duchy remains in the extraction of iron, and in the large industry that derives from it, which alone participates 1/3 of the national productivity. This industry had, between 1948 and 1956, a magnificent boost: the production of iron ore increased from 850 thousand tons in 1946 to 7,593,000 tons in 1956, that of cast iron from 1.3 million tons to 3,312. 883 and that of steel from 1.3 million t to 3,455,700 in the same period, that of rolled products from a little over a million t in 1946 to 2.8 million in 1956. The number of blast furnaces has risen from 15 to 32. However, in the last few years, that is after 1956, the pace of this impulse has slowed down somewhat and in 1958 production has dropped somewhat compared to previous years: iron ore, 6,637,998 t; cast iron, 3,284,485 t;
This is a consequence of the fact that the prosperity of Luxembourg largely depends on the situation of the international steel market, which in fact had a period of stagnation around 1958. But it is also a consequence of some somewhat aged internal structures, which joining the Common Market has brought to light in the last three years, causing disadvantageous competition for Luxembourg, from the nearby Lorraine steel region: for example. the excessively high cost of rail transport and labor (which exceeds the Italian one by 46%, the German by 24% and the French by 20%).
Among the other industries, the construction industry which employs around 7,000 workers and has marked the most salient developments in the cement factory (180,000 t on average between 1955 and 1957), that of tanning and leather, which gives half of the related articles supplied by the Benelux, and also food items (beer; pork processing; production of milk derivatives).
Finances. – The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg exercises its financial and monetary activity within the union with Belgium, according to the agreements of 1944; the value of the Luxembourg franc is therefore always at par with that of the Belgian franc, which continues to be legal tender in the Grand Duchy. The exchange rate fluctuates, with minimal variations, around 50 francs per 1 US dollar