$8.754 trillion f.o.b. (2003 est.)

Imports - commodities:
the whole range of industrial and agricultural goods and services

Imports - partners:
Germany 9.4%, US 9.3%, China 8.5%, Japan 6.5%, France 4.5% (2004)

Debt - external:
$12.7 trillion (2004 est.)

Economic aid - recipient:
$154 billion official development assistance (ODA) (2004)

Communications World

Telephones - main lines in use:
843,923,500 (2003)

Telephones - mobile cellular:
NA

Telephone system:
general assessment: NA
domestic: NA
international: NA

Radio broadcast stations:
AM NA, FM NA, shortwave NA

Radios:
NA

Television broadcast stations:
NA

Televisions:
NA

Internet Service Providers (ISPs):
10,350 (2000 est.)

Internet users:
604,111,719 (2002 est.)

Transportation World

Railways:
total: 1,115,205 km
broad gauge: 257,481 km
standard gauge: 671,413 km
narrow gauge: 186,311 km (2003)

Highways:
total: 32,345,165 km
paved: 19,403,061 km
unpaved: 12,942,104 km (2002)

Waterways:
671,886 km (2004)

Merchant marine:
total ships: 30,936 (2005)

Airports:
49,973 (2004)

Military World

Military expenditures - dollar figure:
aggregate real expenditure on arms worldwide in 1999 remained at
approximately the 1998 level, about three-quarters of a trillion
dollars (1999 est.)

Military expenditures - percent of GDP:
roughly 2% of gross world product (1999 est.)

Transnational Issues World

Disputes - international:
stretching over 250,000 km, the world's 325 international land
boundaries separate the 192 independent states and 73 dependencies,
areas of special sovereignty, and other miscellaneous entities;
ethnicity, culture, race, religion, and language have divided states
into separate political entities as much as history, physical
terrain, political fiat, or conquest, resulting in sometimes
arbitrary and imposed boundaries; maritime states have claimed
limits and have so far established over 130 maritime boundaries and
joint development zones to allocate ocean resources and to provide
for national security at sea; boundary, borderland/resource, and
territorial disputes vary in intensity from managed or dormant to
violent or militarized; most disputes over the alignment of
political boundaries are confined to short segments and are today
less common and less hostile than borderland, resource, and
te