@Kazakhstan: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.)