Flag description: three equal horizontal bands of red (top), white, and black with a green isosceles triangle based on the hoist side
@Sudan:Economy
Economy-overview: Sudan is buffeted by civil war, chronic political instability, adverse weather, high inflation, a drop in remittances from abroad, and counterproductive economic policies. The private sector's main areas of activity are agriculture and trading, with most private industrial investment predating 1980. Agriculture employs 80% of the work force. Industry mainly processes agricultural items. Sluggish economic performance over the past decade, attributable largely to declining annual rainfall, has kept per capita income at low levels. A large foreign debt and huge arrearages continue to cause difficulties. In 1990 the International Monetary Fund took the unusual step of declaring Sudan noncooperative because of its nonpayment of arrearages to the Fund. After Sudan backtracked on promised reforms in 1992-93, the IMF threatened to expel Sudan from the Fund. To avoid expulsion, Khartoum agreed to make payments on its arrears to the Fund, liberalize exchange rates, and reduce subsidies, measures it has partially implemented. The government's continued prosecution of the civil war and its growing international isolation continued to inhibit growth in the nonagricultural sectors of the economy during 1997. Hyperinflation has raised consumer prices above the reach of most. In 1997, a top priority was to develop potentially lucrative oilfields in south-central Sudan; the government was seeking foreign partners to exploit the oil sector.
GDP: purchasing power parity-$26.6 billion (1997 est.)
GDP-real growth rate: 5% (1997 est.)
GDP-per capita: purchasing power parity-$875 (1997 est.)
GDP-composition by sector: agriculture: 33% industry: 17% services: 50% (1992 est.)
Inflation rate-consumer price index: 27% (mid-1997 est.)
Labor force: total: 11 million (1996 est.) by occupation: agriculture 80%, industry and commerce 10%, government 6% note: labor shortages for almost all categories of skilled employment (1983 est.)
Unemployment rate: 30% (FY92/93 est.)