Zimbabwe Economy 2007

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 drained hundreds of millions of dollars from the economy. 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. 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% in 2004, 585% in 2005, and approached 1000% in 2006, although private sector estimates put the figure much higher. Meanwhile, the official exchange rate fell from approximately 1 (revalued) Zimbabwean dollar per US dollar in 2003 to 160 per US dollar in 2006.

GDP (purchasing power parity):
$25.58 billion (2006 est.)

GDP (official exchange rate):
$3.156 billion (2006 est.)

GDP - real growth rate:
-4.1% (2006 est.)

GDP - per capita (PPP):
$2,100 (2006 est.)

GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 16.7%
industry: 21.6%
services: 61.6% (2006 est.)

Labor force:
3.99 million (2006 est.)

Labor force - by occupation:
agriculture: 66%
industry: 10%
services: 24% (1996)

Unemployment rate:
80% (2005 est.)

Population below poverty line:
68% (2004)

Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: 2%
highest 10%: 40.4% (1995)

Distribution of family income - Gini index:
56.8 (2003)

Inflation rate (consumer prices):
1,033.5% official data; private sector estimates are much higher (2006 est.)

Investment (gross fixed):
17.8% of GDP (2006 est.)

Budget:
revenues: $2.156 billion
expenditures: $2.789 billion (2006 est.)

Public debt:
96.4% of GDP (2006 est.)

Agriculture - products:
corn, cotton, tobacco, wheat, coffee, sugarcane, peanuts; sheep, goats, pigs

Industries:
mining (coal, gold, platinum, copper, nickel, tin, clay, numerous metallic and nonmetallic ores), steel; wood products, cement, chemicals, fertilizer, clothing and footwear, foodstuffs, beverages

Industrial production growth rate:
-1.8% (2006 est.)

Electricity - production:
9.95 billion kWh (2005)

Electricity - consumption:
12.27 billion kWh (2005)

Electricity - exports:
0 kWh (2005)

Electricity - imports:
3.013 billion kWh (2005)

Oil - production:
0 bbl/day (2004 est.)

Oil - consumption:
22,500 bbl/day (2004 est.)

Oil - exports:
0 bbl/day (2004 est.)

Oil - imports:
13,370 bbl/day (2004 est.)

Oil - proved reserves:
0 bbl (1 January 2006)

Natural gas - production:
0 cu m (2005 est.)

Natural gas - consumption:
0 cu m (2005 est.)

Current account balance:
$-366 million (2006 est.)

Exports:
$1.649 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.)

Exports - commodities:
cotton, tobacco, gold, ferroalloys, textiles/clothing

Exports - partners:
Sudan 24.9%, Republic of the Congo 17.7%, Burkina Faso 15.8%, US 10.5% (2006)

Imports:
$2.04 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.)

Imports - commodities:
machinery and transport equipment, other manufactures, chemicals, fuels

Imports - partners:
South Africa 40.8%, Zambia 29.6%, US 4.9% (2006)

Economic aid - recipient:
$367.7 million; note - the EU and the US provide food aid on humanitarian grounds (2005 est.)

Reserves of foreign exchange and gold:
$140 million (2006 est.)

Debt - external:
$4.576 billion (2006 est.)

Stock of direct foreign investment - at home:
$NA

Stock of direct foreign investment - abroad:
$NA

Market value of publicly traded shares:
$26.56 billion (2006)

Currency (code):
Zimbabwean dollar (ZWD)

Exchange rates:
Zimbabwean dollars per US dollar - 162.07 (2006), 77.965 (2005), 5.729 (2004), 0.824 (2003), 0.055 (2002)
note: these are official exchange rates; non-official rates vary significantly