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Flag: three horizontal bands of red (top), blue (double width),
and red with a large white disk centered in the blue band

Economy
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Economic overview: The government of Laos - one of the few
remaining official communist states - has been decentralizing
control and encouraging private enterprise since 1986. The results,
starting from an extremely low base, have been striking - growth has
averaged 7.5% annually since 1988. Even so, Laos is a landlocked
country with a primitive infrastructure. It has no railroads, a
rudimentary road system, and limited external and internal
telecommunications. Electricity is available in only a few urban
areas. Subsistence agriculture accounts for half of GDP and provides
80% of total employment. The predominant crop is rice. In
non-drought years, Laos is self-sufficient overall in food, but each
year flood, pests, and localized drought cause shortages in various
parts of the country. For the foreseeable future the economy will
continue to depend on aid from the IMF and other international
sources; aid from the former USSR/Eastern Europe has been cut
sharply. As in many developing countries, deforestation and soil
erosion will hamper efforts to maintain the high rate of GDP growth.

GDP: purchasing power parity - $5.2 billion (1995 est.)

GDP real growth rate: 8% (1995 est.)

GDP per capita: $1,100 (1995 est.)

GDP composition by sector:
agriculture: 50%
industry: 17%
services: 33% (1993)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 20% (1995 est.)

Labor force: 1 million-1.5 million
by occupation: agriculture 80% (1992 est.)

Unemployment rate: 21% (1992 est.)

Budget:
revenues: $198 million
expenditures: $351 million, including capital expenditures of $NA
(1994)

Industries: tin and gypsum mining, timber, electric power,
agricultural processing, construction

Industrial production growth rate: 7.5% (1992 est.)

Electricity:
capacity: 260,000 kW
production: 870 million kWh
consumption per capita: 44 kWh (1993)

Agriculture: sweet potatoes, vegetables, corn, coffee, sugarcane,
cotton; water buffalo, pigs, cattle, poultry

Illicit drugs: world's third largest opium producer (180 metric
tons from nearly 20,000 hectares in 1995); heroin producer;
increasingly used as transshipment point for heroin produced in
Burma; illicit producer of cannabis

Exports: $278