Economy (Nigeria)
=================


     Overview:
         Although Nigeria is Africa's leading oil-producing country, it remains poor
         with a $250 per capita GDP. In 1991 massive government spending, much of it
         to help ensure a smooth transition to civilian rule, ballooned the budget
         deficit and caused inflation and interest rates to rise. The lack of fiscal
         discipline forced the IMF to declare Nigeria not in compliance with an
         18-month standby facility started in January 1991. Lagos has set ambitious
         targets for expanding oil production capacity and is offering foreign
         companies more attractive investment incentives. Government efforts to
         reduce Nigeria's dependence on oil exports and to sustain noninflationary
         growth, however, have fallen short because of inadequate new investment
         funds and endemic corruption. Living standards continue to deteriorate from
         the higher level of the early 1980s oil boom.
     GDP:
         exchange rate conversion - $30 billion, per capita $250; real growth rate
         5.2% (1990 est.)
     Inflation rate (consumer prices):
         40% (1991)
     Unemployment rate:
         NA%
     Budget:
         revenues $10 billion; expenditures $10 billion, including capital
         expenditures of $NA (1992 est.)
     Exports:
         $13.6 billion (f.o.b., 1990)
       commodities:
         oil 95%, cocoa, rubber
       partners:
         EC 51%, US 32%
     Imports:
         $6.9 billion (c.i.f., 1990)
       commodities:
         consumer goods, capital equipment, chemicals, raw materials
       partners:
         EC, US
     External debt:
         $32 billion (December 1991 est.)
     Industrial production:
         growth rate 7.2% (1990); accounts for 8.5% of GDP
     Electricity:
         4,740,000 kW capacity; 11,280 million kWh produced, 90 kWh per capita (1991)
     Industries:
         crude oil and mining - coal, tin, columbite; primary processing industries -
         palm oil, peanut, cotton, rubber, wood, hides and skins; manufacturing
         industries - textiles, cement, building materials, food products, footwear,
         chemical, printing, ceramics, steel
     Agriculture:
         accounts for 32% of GDP and half of labor force; inefficient small-scale
         farming dominates; once a large net exporter of food and now an importer;
         cash crops - cocoa, peanuts, palm oil, rubber; food crops - corn, rice,
         sorghum, millet, cassava, yams; livestock - cattle, sheep, goats, pigs;
         fishing and forestry resources extensively exploited
     Illicit drugs:
         illicit heroin and some cocaine trafficking; marijuana cultivation for
         domestic consumption and export; major transit country for heroin en route
         from southeast and southwest Asia via Africa to Western Europe and the US;
         growing transit route for cocaine from South America via West Africa to
         Western Europe and the US