P.
Industrial activity mainly involves the processing of agricultural
produce including jute, sugarcane, tobacco, and grain. Security
concerns in the wake of the Maoist conflict have led to a decrease
in tourism, a key source of foreign exchange. Nepal has considerable
scope for exploiting its potential in hydropower and tourism, areas
of recent foreign investment interest. Prospects for foreign trade
or investment in other sectors will remain poor, however, because of
the small size of the economy, its technological backwardness, its
remoteness, its landlocked geographic location, its civil strife,
and its susceptibility to natural disaster.

GDP (purchasing power parity):
$39.53 billion (2004 est.)

GDP - real growth rate:
3% (2004 est.)

GDP - per capita:
purchasing power parity - $1,500 (2004 est.)

GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 40%
industry: 20%
services: 40% (2002 est.)

Labor force:
10 million
note: severe lack of skilled labor (1996 est.)

Labor force - by occupation:
agriculture 81%, industry 3%, services 16%

Unemployment rate:
47% (2001 est.)

Population below poverty line:
42% (1995-96)

Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: 3.2%
highest 10%: 29.8% (1995-96)

Distribution of family income - Gini index:
36.7 (FY95/96)

Inflation rate (consumer prices):
2.9% (2002 est.)

Budget:
revenues: $665 million
expenditures: $1.1 billion, including capital expenditures of NA
(FY99/00 est.)

Agriculture - products:
rice, corn, wheat, sugarcane, root crops; milk, water buffalo meat

Industries:
tourism, carpet, textile; small rice, jute, sugar, and oilseed
mills; cigarette; cement and brick production

Industrial production growth rate:
8.7% (FY99/00)

Electricity - production:
2.054 billion kWh (2002)

Electricity - production by source:
fossil fuel: 8.5%
hydro: 91.5%
nuclear: 0%
other: 0% (2001)

Electricity - consumption:
2.005 billion kWh (2002)

Electricity - exports:
142 million kWh (2002)

Electricity - imports:
237 million kWh (2002)

Oil - production:
0 bbl/day (2001 est.)

Oil - consumption:
16,000 bbl/day (2001 est.)

Oil - exports:
NA

Oil - imports:
NA

Exports:
$568 million f.o.b., but does not include unrecorded border trade
with India (2002 est.)

Exports - commodities:
carpets, clothing, leather goods, jute goods,