Economy (Lithuania)
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     Overview:
         Lithuania is striving to become a small, independent, largely privatized
         economy rather than a segment of a huge, centrally planned economy. Although
         substantially above average in living standards and technology in the old
         USSR, Lithuania historically lagged behind Latvia and Estonia in economic
         development. It is ahead of its Baltic neighbors, however, in implementing
         market reform. The country has no important natural resources aside from its
         arable land and strategic location. Industry depends entirely on imported
         materials that have come from the republics of the former USSR. Lithuania
         benefits from its ice-free port at Klaipeda on the Baltic Sea and its rail
         and highway hub at Vilnius, which provides land communication between
         Eastern Europe and Russia, Latvia, Estonia, and Belarus. Industry produces a
         small assortment of high-quality products, ranging from complex machine
         tools to sophisticated consumer electronics. Thanks to nuclear power,
         Lithuania is presently self-sufficient in electricity, exporting its surplus
         to Latvia and Belarus; the nuclear facilities inherited from the USSR,
         however, have come under world scrutiny as seriously deficient in safety
         standards. Agriculture is efficient compared with most of the former Soviet
         Union. Lithuania holds first place in per capita consumption of meat, second
         place for eggs and potatoes, and fourth place for milk and dairy products.
         Grain must be imported to support the meat and dairy industries. As to
         economic reforms, Lithuania is pressing ahead with plans to privatize at
         least 60% of state-owned property (industry, agriculture, and housing)
         having already sold many small enterprises using a voucher system. Other
         government priorities include stimulating foreign investment by protecting
         the property rights of foreign firms and redirecting foreign trade away from
         Eastern markets to the more competitive Western markets. For the moment,
         Lithuania will remain highly dependent on Russia for energy, raw materials,
         grains, and markets for its products.
     GDP:
         purchasing power equivalent - $NA; per capita NA; real growth rate -13%
         (1991)
     Inflation rate (consumer prices):
         200% (1991)
     Unemployment rate:
         NA%
     Budget:
         revenues 4.8 billion rubles; expenditures 4.7 billion rubles (1989 economic
         survey); note - budget revenues and expenditures are not given for other
         former Soviet republics; implied deficit from these figures does not have a
         clear interpretation
     Exports:
         700 million rubles (f.o.b., 1990)
       commodities:
         electronics 18%, petroleum products 16%, food 10%, chemicals 6% (1989)
       partners:
         Russia 60%, Ukraine 15%, other former Soviet republics 20%, West 5%
     Imports:
         2.2 billion rubles (c.i.f., 1990)
       commodities:
         oil 24%, machinery 14%, chemicals 8%, grain NA%
       partners:
         NA
     External debt:
         $650 million (1991 est.)
     Industrial production:
         growth rate -1.3% (1991)
     Electricity:
         5,875,000 kW capacity; 25,500 million kWh produced, NA kWh per capita (1991)