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- Economy
-
- Overview: One of Africa's poorest countries, with a per
- capita GDP of little more than $100, Mozambique has failed
- to exploit the economic potential of its sizable agricultural,
- hydropower, and transportation resources. Indeed, national
- output, consumption, and investment declined throughout
- the first half of the 1980s because of internal disorders,
- lack of government administrative control, and a growing
- foreign debt. A sharp increase in foreign aid, attracted
- by an economic reform policy, has resulted in successive
- years of economic growth since 1985. Agricultural output,
- nevertheless, is only at about 75% of its 1981 level, and
- grain has to be imported. Industry operates at only 20-40%
- of capacity. The economy depends heavily on foreign assistance
- to keep afloat.
-
- GDP: $1.6 billion, per capita less than $110; real growth rate 5.0%
- (1988).
-
- Inflation rate (consumer prices): 81.1% (1988).
-
- Unemployment rate: 40.0 (1988).
-
- Budget: revenues $186 million; expenditures $239 million,
- including capital expenditures of $208 million (1988 est.).
-
- Exports: $100 million (f.o.b., 1988); commodities--shrimp 48%,
- cashews 21%, sugar 10%, copra 3%, citrus 3%; partners--US,
- Western Europe, GDR, Japan.
-
- Imports: $764 million (c.i.f., 1988), including aid; commodities--
- food, clothing, farm equipment, petroleum; partners--US, Western
- Europe, USSR.
-
- External debt: $4.4 billion (1988).
-
- Industrial production: growth rate 7% (1989 est.).
-
- Electricity: 2,265,000 kW capacity; 1,740 million kWh produced,
- 120 kWh per capita (1989).
-
- Industries: food, beverages, chemicals (fertilizer, soap,
- paints), petroleum products, textiles, nonmetallic mineral
- products (cement, glass, asbestos), tobacco.
-
- Agriculture: accounts for 50% of GDP, over 80% of labor
- force, and about 90% of exports; cash crops--cotton, cashew
- nuts, sugarcane, tea, shrimp; other crops--cassava, corn,
- rice, tropical fruits; not self-sufficient in food.
-
- Aid: US commitments, including Ex-Im (FY70-88), $282 million;
- Western (non-US) countries, ODA and OOF bilateral commitments
- (1970-87), $3.1 billion; OPEC bilateral aid (1979-89),
- $37 million; Communist countries (1970-88), $887 million.
-
- Currency: metical (plural--meticais); 1 metical (Mt) =
- 100 centavos.
-
- Exchange rates: meticais (Mt) per US$1--800 (September 1989),
- 528.60 (1988), 289.44 (1987), 40.43 (1986), 43.18 (1985).
-
- Fiscal year: calendar year.
-