- lags behind world
standards of efficiency and quality of product. Other major industrial
sectors - chemicals, construction materials, light industry, and food
processing - also suffer from quality problems, obsolescent capital
equipment, and pollution. Consumer goods have had lower priority, and the
product mix has not mirrored household preferences. Furthermore, the
transition to a more market-oriented economy has disrupted channels of
supply to factories and distribution outlets; substantial imports of foods
and medical supplies have helped maintain minimum standards of consumption.
Russia inherited 70% of the former USSR's defense production facilities and
is experiencing major social problems during conversion of many of these
plants to civilian production. Russia produces almost half of the old USSR's
farm products, but most warm-climate crops must be imported. Under the old
USSR, production of industrial and agricultural goods often was concentrated
in a single firm or a single republic. Today, producing units often have
lost their major customers and their major sources of supply, and the market
institutions and incentives for adjusting to the new political and economic
situations are only slowly emerging. Rank-and-file Russians will continue to
suffer major deprivations in 1992 and beyond before the country begins to
realize its great economic potential. The comprehensive economic reform
program enacted in January 1992 faces many economic and political hurdles
before it will lead to sustained economic growth.
GDP:
purchasing power equivalent - $NA, per capita $NA; real growth rate - 9%
(1991)
Inflation rate (consumer prices):
89% (1991)
Unemployment rate:
NA%
Budget:
NA
Exports:
$58.7 billion (f.o.b., 1991)
commodities:
petroleum and petroleum products, natural gas, wood and wood products, coal,
nonferrous metals, chemicals, and a wide variety of civilian and military
manufactures
partners:
Western Europe, Japan, Eastern Europe
Imports:
$43.5 billion (c.i.f., 1991)
commodities:
machinery and equipment, chemicals, consumer goods, grain, meat,
semifinished metal products
partners:
Western and Eastern Europe, Japan, Third World countries, Cuba
External debt:
$40 billion (end of 1991 est.)
Industrial production:
-8% after adjustment for inflation d