Economy

Economy—overview: Kazakhstan the second largest of the former Soviet republics in territory possesses enormous untapped fossil fuel reserves as well as plentiful supplies of other minerals and metals. It also has considerable agricultural potential with its vast steppe lands accommodating both livestock and grain production. Kazakhstan's industrial sector rests on the extraction and processing of these natural resources and also on a relatively large machine building sector specializing in construction equipment tractors agricultural machinery and some defense items. The breakup of the USSR and the collapse of demand for Kazakhstan's traditional heavy industry products have resulted in a sharp contraction of the economy since 1991 with the steepest annual decline occurring in 1994. In 1995-97 the pace of the government program of economic reform and privatization quickened resulting in a substantial shifting of assets into the private sector. The December 1996 signing of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium agreement to build a new pipeline from western Kazakhstan's Tengiz oil field to the Black Sea increases prospects for substantially larger oil exports in several years. The emigration of large numbers of skilled Slavic managers and technicians from the northern industrial areas will hold back future growth.

GDP: purchasing power parity—$50 billion (1997 est.)

GDP—real growth rate: 2.1% (1997 est.)

GDP—per capita: purchasing power parity—$3 000 (1997 est.)

GDP—composition by sector:

agriculture: 12%

industry: 25%

services: 63% (1996 est.)

Inflation rate—consumer price index: 12% (1997 est.)

Labor force:

total: 6.9 million

by occupation: industry 27% agriculture and forestry 23% other 50% (1996)

Unemployment rate: 2.6% includes only officially registered unemployed; also large additional numbers of unemployed and underemployed workers (December 1996 est.)

Budget:

revenues: $3 billion

expenditures: $4.6 billion including capital expenditures of $40 million (1996 est.)

Industries: oil coal iron ore manganese chromite lead zinc copper titanium bauxite gold silver phosphates sulfur iron and steel nonferrous metal tractors and other agricultural machinery electric motors construction materials; much of industrial capacity is shut down and/or is in need of repair

Industrial production growth rate: 3% (1997 est.)

Electricity—capacity: 18.9 million kW (1995)

Electricity—production: 61.7 billion kWh (1995)

Electricity—consumption per capita: 3 800 kWh (1996 est.)

Agriculture—products: grain mostly spring wheat cotton; wool meat

Exports:

total value: $5.6 billion (1996)

commodities: oil ferrous and nonferrous metals chemicals grain wool meat coal

partners: Russia Ukraine Uzbekistan Netherlands China

Imports:

total value: $6 billion (1996)

commodities: machinery and parts industrial materials oil and gas

partners: Russia Ukraine Uzbekistan Turkey Germany

Debt—external: $3.3 billion (1996)

Economic aid:

recipient: ODA $10 million (1993)

note: commitments 1992-95 $4 780 million ($1 795 million disbursements)

Currency: 1 Kazakhstani tenge = 100 tiyn

Exchange rates: tenges per US$1—76.4 (February 1998) 75.55 (January 1998) 75.44 (1997) 67.30 (1996) 60.95 (1995) 35.54 (1994)

Fiscal year: calendar year