with a stylized
ox head, star, rose, and crescent all in black-outlined yellow

Economy

Economy - overview: Moldova enjoys a favorable climate and good
farmland but has no major mineral deposits. As a result, the economy
depends heavily on agriculture, featuring fruits, vegetables, wine,
and tobacco. Moldova must import all of its supplies of oil, coal, and
natural gas, largely from Russia. Energy shortages contributed to
sharp production declines after the breakup of the Soviet Union in
1991. The Moldovan Government has recently been making progress on an
ambitious economic reform agenda, and the IMF has called Moldova a
model for the region. As part of its reform efforts, Moldova
introduced a stable convertible currency, freed all prices, stopped
issuing preferential credits to state enterprises and backed their
steady privatization, removed export controls, and freed interest
rates. With the election of President LUCINSCHI in December 1996, it
is unclear how rapidly the reforms will be pushed.

GDP: purchasing power parity - $10.8 billion (1996 estimate
extrapolated from World Bank estimate for 1994)

GDP - real growth rate: 1.5% (1996 est.)

GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $2,400 (1996 est.)

GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 48%
industry: 28%
services: 24% (1994)

Inflation rate - consumer price index: 15% (1996 est.)

Labor force:
total: 2.03 million (January 1994)
by occupation: agriculture 39.5%, industry 12.0%, other 48.5% (1994)

Unemployment rate: 1.4% (includes only officially registered
unemployed; large numbers of underemployed workers) (January 1996)

Budget:
revenues: $570 million
expenditures: $645 million, including capital expenditures of $NA
(1997 est.)

Industries: food processing, agricultural machinery, foundry
equipment, refrigerators and freezers, washing machines, hosiery,
sugar, vegetable oil, shoes, textiles

Industrial production growth rate: 3% (1996 est.)

Electricity - capacity: 3.222 million kW (1995)

Electricity - production: 1.4 billion kWh (1996)

Electricity - consumption per capita: 324 kWh (1996 est.)

Agriculture - products: vegetables, fruits, wine, grain, sugar beets,
sunflower seed, tobacco; meat, milk

Exports:
total value: $775 million (1996)
commodities: foodstuffs, wine, tobacco, textiles and footwear,
machinery
partners : Russia, Kazakstan, Ukraine, Romania, Germany

Imports:
total value: $1.048 billion (1996)
commodit