Turkmenistan Economy - 2005

Economy - overview:
Turkmenistan is largely desert country with intensive agriculture in irrigated oases and large gas and oil resources. One-half of its irrigated land is planted in cotton; formerly it was the world's tenth-largest producer. Poor harvests in recent years have led to a nearly 46% decline in cotton exports. With an authoritarian ex-Communist regime in power and a tribally based social structure, Turkmenistan has taken a cautious approach to economic reform, hoping to use gas and cotton sales to sustain its inefficient economy. Privatization goals remain limited. In 1998-2004, Turkmenistan suffered from the continued lack of adequate export routes for natural gas and from obligations on extensive short-term external debt. At the same time, however, total exports rose by perhaps 30% in 2003 and 19% in 2004, largely because of higher international oil and gas prices. Overall prospects in the near future are discouraging because of widespread internal poverty, the burden of foreign debt, the government's irrational use of oil and gas revenues, and its unwillingness to adopt market-oriented reforms. Turkmenistan's economic statistics are state secrets, and GDP and other figures are subject to wide margins of error. In particular, the rate of GDP growth is uncertain.

GDP:
purchasing power parity - $27.6 billion (2004 est.)

GDP - real growth rate:
IMF estimate: 7.5%
note: official government statistics show 21.4% growth, but these estimates are notoriously unreliable (2004 est.)

GDP - per capita:
purchasing power parity - $5,700 (2004 est.)

GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 28.5%
industry: 42.7%
services: 28.8% (2004 est.)

Labor force:
2.32 million (2003 est.)

Labor force - by occupation:
agriculture 48.2%, industry 13.8%, services 37% (2003 est.)

Unemployment rate:
60% (2004 est.)

Population below poverty line:
58% (2003 est.)

Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: 2.6%
highest 10%: 31.7% (1998)

Distribution of family income - Gini index:
40.8 (1998)

Inflation rate (consumer prices):
9% (2004 est.)

Investment (gross fixed):
29% of GDP (2004 est.)

Budget:
revenues: $3.05 billion
expenditures: $3.05 billion, including capital expenditures of NA (2004 est.)

Agriculture - products:
cotton, grain; livestock

Industries:
natural gas, oil, petroleum products, textiles, food processing

Industrial production growth rate:
official government estimate: 22% (2003 est.)

Electricity - production:
11.41 billion kWh (2004 est.)

Electricity - consumption:
8.908 billion kWh (2002)

Electricity - exports:
1.136 billion kWh (2004)

Electricity - imports:
0 kWh (2002)

Oil - production:
162,500 bbl/day (2001 est.)

Oil - consumption:
63,000 bbl/day (2001 est.)

Oil - exports:
NA

Oil - imports:
NA

Oil - proved reserves:
273 million bbl (1 January 2002)

Natural gas - production:
58.57 billion cu m (2004 est.)

Natural gas - consumption:
9.6 billion cu m (2001 est.)

Natural gas - exports:
43.5 billion cu m (2004 est.)

Natural gas - imports:
0 cu m (2001 est.)

Natural gas - proved reserves:
1.43 trillion cu m (1 January 2002)

Current account balance:
$114 million (2004 est.)

Exports:
$4 billion f.o.b. (2004 est.)

Exports - commodities:
gas, crude oil, petrochemicals, cotton fiber, textiles

Exports - partners:
Ukraine 49.8%, Iran 17.2%, Italy 5.3%, Turkey 4.7% (2004)

Imports:
$2.85 billion f.o.b. (2004 est.)

Imports - commodities:
machinery and equipment, chemicals, foodstuffs

Imports - partners:
Russia 14%, Ukraine 13.8%, US 11.1%, UAE 8.1%, Turkey 8%, Germany 6.8%, France 4.6% (2004)

Reserves of foreign exchange and gold:
$3.034 billion (2004 est.)

Debt - external:
$2.4 billion to $5 billion (2001 est.)

Economic aid - recipient:
$16 million from the US (2001)

Currency (code):
Turkmen manat (TMM)

Exchange rates:
Turkmen manats per US dollar - 10,100 (2004), 10,034 (2003), 10,098 (2002), 5,200 (2001)
note: in recent years the unofficial rate has hovered around 21,000 manats to the dollar