her minerals and metals. It also
has considerable agricultural potential with its vast steppe lands
accommodating both livestock and grain production. Kazakstan's
industrial sector rests on the extraction and processing of these
natural resources and also on a relatively large machine building
sector specializing in construction equipment, tractors, agricultural
machinery, and some defense items. The breakup of the USSR and the
collapse of demand for Kazakstan's traditional heavy industry products
have resulted in a sharp contraction of the economy since 1991, with
the steepest annual decline occurring in 1994. In 1995-96 the pace of
the government program of economic reform and privatization quickened,
resulting in a substantial shifting of assets into the private sector.
The December 1996 signing of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium agreement
to build a new pipeline from Kazakstan's western Tengiz oil field to
the Black Sea increases prospects for substantially larger oil exports
in several years. The emigration of large numbers of skilled Slavic
managers and technicians from the northern industrial areas will hold
back future growth.

GDP: purchasing power parity - $48.6 billion (1996 estimate as
extrapolated from World Bank estimate for 1994)

GDP - real growth rate: 1.1% (1996 est.)

GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $2,880 (1996 est.)

GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 12%
industry: 30%
services : 58% (1995)

Inflation rate - consumer price index: 28.7% (1996 est.)

Labor force:
total: 6.9 million
by occupation: industry 27%, agriculture and forestry 23%, other 50%
(1996)

Unemployment rate: 2.6% includes only officially registered
unemployed; also large additional numbers of unemployed and
underemployed workers (December 1996 est.)

Budget:
revenues: $NA
expenditures : $NA, including capital expenditures of $NA

Industries: oil, coal, iron ore, manganese, chromite, lead, zinc,
copper, titanium, bauxite, gold, silver, phosphates, sulfur, iron and
steel, nonferrous metal, tractors and other agricultural machinery,
electric motors, construction materials; much of industrial capacity
is shut down and/or is in need of repair

Industrial production growth rate: 0.3% (1996 est.)

Electricity - capacity: 17 million kW 000 kW

Electricity - production: 58.9 billion kWh

Electricity - consumption per capita: 3,800 kWh (1996 est.)

Agriculture - products: grain, mostly spring wheat, co