Zimbabwe Economy 2008

Economy - overview:
The government of Zimbabwe faces a wide variety of difficult economic problems as it struggles with an unsustainable fiscal deficit, an overvalued official exchange rate, hyperinflation, and bare store 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, and the government's unwillingness to enact reforms that would stabilize the economy. The Central Bank routinely prints money to fund the budget deficit, causing the official annual inflation rate to rise from 32% in 1998, to 133% in 2004, 585% in 2005, passed 1000% in 2006, and 6000% in 2007. Meanwhile, the official exchange rate fell from approximately 1 (revalued) Zimbabwean dollar per US dollar in 2003 to more than 17,500 per US dollar in 2007.

GDP (purchasing power parity):
$6.186 billion (2007 est.)

GDP (official exchange rate):
$3.129 billion (2007 est.)

GDP - real growth rate:
-5.7% (2007 est.)

GDP - per capita (PPP):
$500 (2007 est.)

GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 16.7%
industry: 21.6%
services: 61.6% (2007 est.)

Labor force:
3.998 million (2007 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):
6,072% official data; private sector estimates are much higher (2007 est.)

Investment (gross fixed):
18.2% of GDP (2007 est.)

Budget:
revenues: $1.105 billion
expenditures: $1.366 billion (2007 est.)

Public debt:
189.9% of GDP (2007 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:
0.5% (2007 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 (2005 est.)

Oil - consumption:
16,000 bbl/day (2005 est.)

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

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

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

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

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

natural gas - exports:
0 cu m (2005 est.)

natural gas - imports:
0 cu m (2005)

natural gas - proved reserves:
0 cu m (1 January 2006 est.)

Current account balance:
-$409 million (2007 est.)

Exports:
$1.76 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.)

Exports - commodities:
platinum, 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:
$2.183 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.)

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:
$120 million (31 December 2007 est.)

Debt - external:
$4.876 billion (31 December 2007 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 - 17,562.5 (2007), 162.07 (2006), 77.965 (2005), 5.729 (2004), 0.824 (2003)
note: these are official exchange rates; non-official rates vary significantly