ports of consumer goods; the failure
to act decisively for the privatization of agriculture; and the buildup
of a massive overhang of unspent rubles in the hands of households and
enterprises. In October 1989, a top economic adviser, Leonid Abalkin
presented an ambitious but reasonable timetable for the conversion to a
partially privatized market system in the 1990s. In December 1989,
however, Premier Ryzhkov's conservative approach prevailed, namely, the
contention that a period of retrenchment was necessary to provide a
stable financial and legislative base for launching further reforms.
Accordingly, the new strategy was to put the reform process on hold in
1990-92 by recentralizing economic authority and to placate the
rank-and-file through sharp increases in consumer goods output. In still
another policy twist, the leadership in early 1990 was considering a
marked speedup in the marketization process. Because the economy is
caught in between two systems, there was in 1989 an even greater mismatch
between what was produced and what would serve the best interests of
enterprises and households. Meanwhile, the seething nationality problems
have been dislocating regional patterns of economic specialization and
pose a further major threat to growth prospects over the next few years.

GNP: $2,659.5 billion, per capita $9,211; real growth rate 1.4%
(1989 est. based on Soviet statistics; cutbacks in Soviet reporting on
products included in sample make the estimate subject to greater
uncertainty than in earlier years)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 6% (1989 est.)

Unemployment rate: officially, no unemployment

Budget: revenues $622 billion; expenditures $781 billion,
including capital expenditures of $119 billion (1989 est.)

Exports: $110.7 billion (f.o.b., 1988);
commodities--petroleum and petroleum products, natural gas, metals,
wood, agricultural products, and a wide variety of manufactured goods
(primarily capital goods and arms);
partners--Eastern Europe 49%, EC 14%, Cuba 5%, US, Afghanistan
(1988)

Imports: $107.3 billion (c.i.f., 1988);
commodities--grain and other agricultural products, machinery and
equipment, steel products (including large-diameter pipe), consumer
manufactures;
partners--Eastern Europe 54%, EC 11%, Cuba, China, US (1988)

External debt: $27.3 billion (1988)

Industrial production: growth rate 0.2% (1989 est.)

Electricity: 355,000,000 kW capacity; 1,790,000 million kWh produced,