Economy - overview:
The government of Zimbabwe faces a wide variety of difficult
economic problems as it struggles with an unsustainable fiscal
deficit, an overvalued exchange rate, soaring inflation, and bare
shelves. Its 1998-2002 involvement in the war in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, for example, drained hundreds of millions of
dollars from the economy. Badly needed support from the IMF has been
suspended because of the government's arrears on past loans, which
it began repaying in 2005. The official annual inflation rate rose
from 32% in 1998, to 133% at the end of 2004, and 585% at the end of
2005, although private sector estimates put the figure much higher.
Meanwhile, the official exchange rate fell from 24 Zimbabwean
dollars per US dollar in 1998 to 96,000 in mid-January 2006. The
government's land reform program, characterized by chaos and
violence, has badly damaged the commercial farming sector, the
traditional source of exports and foreign exchange and the provider
of 400,000 jobs, turning Zimbabwe into a net importer of food
products.
GDP (purchasing power parity):
$25.69 billion (2005 est.)
GDP (official exchange rate):
$3.207 billion (2005 est.)
GDP - real growth rate:
-7.7% (2005 est.)
GDP - per capita (PPP):
$2,100 (2005 est.)
GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 17.9% industry: 24.3% services: 57.9% (2005 est.)
Labor force: 3.94 million (2005 est.)
Labor force - by occupation: agriculture: 66% industry: 10% services: 24% (1996)
Unemployment rate:
80% (2005 est.)
Population below poverty line:
80% (2004 est.)