Economy (Swaziland)
===================


     Overview:
         The economy is based on subsistence agriculture, which occupies most of the
         labor force and contributes nearly 25% to GDP. Manufacturing, which includes
         a number of agroprocessing factories, accounts for another quarter of GDP.
         Mining has declined in importance in recent years; high-grade iron ore
         deposits were depleted in 1978, and health concerns cut world demand for
         asbestos. Exports of sugar and forestry products are the main earners of
         hard currency. Surrounded by South Africa, except for a short border with
         Mozambique, Swaziland is heavily dependent on South Africa, from which it
         receives 75% of its imports and to which it sends about half of its exports.
     GDP:
         exchange rate conversion - $563 million, per capita $725; real growth rate
         5.0% (1990 est.)
     Inflation rate (consumer prices):
         13% (1990)
     Unemployment rate:
         NA%
     Budget:
         revenues $335.4 million; expenditures $360.5 million, including capital
         expenditures of $NA (FY93 est.)
     Exports:
         $557 million (f.o.b., 1990)
       commodities:
         soft drink concentrates, sugar, wood pulp, citrus, canned fruit
       partners:
         South Africa 50% (est.), EC, Canada
     Imports:
         $632 million (f.o.b., 1990)
       commodities:
         motor vehicles, machinery, transport equipment, petroleum products,
         foodstuffs, chemicals
       partners:
         South Africa 75% (est.), Japan, Belgium, UK
     External debt:
         $290 million (1990)
     Industrial production:
         growth rate NA; accounts for 26% of GDP (1989)
     Electricity:
         60,000 kW capacity; 155 million kWh produced, 180 kWh per capita (1991)
     Industries:
         mining (coal and asbestos), wood pulp, sugar
     Agriculture:
         accounts for 23% of GDP and over 60% of labor force; mostly subsistence
         agriculture; cash crops - sugarcane, cotton, maize, tobacco, rice, citrus
         fruit, pineapples; other crops and livestock - corn, sorghum, peanuts,
         cattle, goats, sheep; not self-sufficient in grain
     Economic aid:
         US commitments, including Ex-Im (FY70-89), $142 million; Western (non-US)
         countries, ODA and OOF bilateral commitments (1970-89), $518 million
     Currency:
         lilangeni (plural - emalangeni); 1 lilangeni (E) = 100 cents
     Exchange rates:
         emalangeni (E) per US$1 - 2.7814 (January 1992), 2.7563 (1991), 2.5863
         (1990), 2.6166 (1989), 2.2611 (1988), 2.0350 (1987); note - the Swazi
         emalangeni is at par with the South African rand
     Fiscal year:
         1 April - 31 March




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