ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies the major post-war structural trends, and examines in particular their progress during the 1960s, a decade in which the complexion of industry changed with unusual speed. In the basic industrial field new enterprises included the private and State coal-mining interests in South Limburg, and the Hoogovens iron works at the seaward end of the North Sea Canal. In the early post-war years the goal of reconstructing, and where possible improving, the pre-war industrial base naturally dominated economic policy. The general policy adopted to cope with the balance of payments problem, and with the growth of the labour force and its sectoral shift, was a concentration upon greater industrialisation. Between 1968 and 1971, the broad outlines of the oil marketing system remained, but with the modification that industrial consumption of refined oil products fell by 25 per cent in response to competition from natural gas.
