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Concept
Economy of Jersey
Summary
The economy of Jersey is a highly developed social market economy. It is largely driven by international financial services and legal services, which accounted for 39.5% of total GVA in 2019, a 4% increase on 2018. Jersey is considered to be an offshore financial centre. Jersey has the preconditions to be a microstate, but it is a self-governing Crown dependency of the UK. It is considered to be a corporate tax haven by many organisations.
Other sectors include construction, retail, agriculture, tourism and telecommunications. Before the Second World War, Jersey's economy was dominated by agriculture, however after liberation, tourism to the island became popular. More recently, the finance industry recognised worth in operating in Jersey, which has now become the island's dominant industry.
In 2017, Jersey's GDP per capita was one of the highest in the world at $55,324. In 2019, the island's economy, as measured by GVA, grew by 2.1% in real terms to £4.97 billion. In December 2020, there were 1,350 people actively seeking work.
Until the 16th century, the economy of Jersey was based on feudalism and open-field self-sustenance agriculture. The main crop, wheat, was exported and sold to Spanish merchants in St Malo.
Enclosure happened in Jersey around the end of the 16th century. Unlike in England, enclosure was done by the peasantry in order to make profit from producing cider, the production of which moved Jersey's economy from self-sufficiency to cash-crop agriculture. From then until the 19th century, cider was the largest agricultural export; in 1795, 20 percent of the island was orchard. In 1839 for example, of cider were exported from Jersey to England alone, but by 1870 exports from Jersey had slumped to . Beer had replaced cider as a fashionable drink in the main export markets, and even the home market had switched to beer as the population became more urban.
Enclosure and the subsequent transition to cash-crop agriculture can be blamed for shortages in essential crops, particularly corn, which caused political instability in the island, such as the 1769 Corn Riots.
Official source
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