ess in Eastern Europe. About 80% of the economy is wholly or
partially in private hands. Because of its progress on reform, the
Czech Republic in 1995 became the first post-Communist member of the
OECD. Its solid economic performance also led Standard and Poor's to
upgrade the country's sovereign credit rating to "A" and attracted
nearly $5.3 billion in direct foreign investment to Czech industry
between 1990 and September 1995. The Czech crown became convertible
for current account transactions in October 1995. Czech companies
increasingly are using the international capital market to fund
capital investment, and foreign currency reserves totaled $13.9
billion at the end of 1995. Prague's biggest macroeconomic concern
now is limiting the inflationary effect of these large capital
inflows. The Czech economy also still faces microeconomic problems.
Prague has promised to strengthen its bankruptcy law and improve the
transparency of stock market operations in 1996, but some changes
probably will not take effect until some time after the
parliamentary elections of mid-1996 and will depend largely on
voluntary compliance. Prague forecasts a balanced budget, 5.5% GDP
growth, 2.8% unemployment, and 8.1% inflation for 1996.

GDP: purchasing power parity - $106.2 billion (1995 est.)

GDP real growth rate: 5% (1995 est.)

GDP per capita: $10,200 (1995 est.)

GDP composition by sector:
agriculture: 5.8%
industry: 40.7%
services: 53.5%

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 9.1% (1995 est.)

Labor force: 5.389 million
by occupation: industry 37.9%, agriculture 8.1%, construction 8.8%,
communications and other 45.2% (1990)

Unemployment rate: 2.9% (1995 est.)

Budget:
revenues: $16.5 billion
expenditures: $16.2 billion, including capital expenditures of $NA
(1995 est.)

Industries: fuels, ferrous metallurgy, machinery and equipment,
coal, motor vehicles, glass, armaments

Industrial production growth rate: 12.9% (January-November 1995)

Electricity:
capacity: 14.470,000 kW
production: 56.3 billion kWh
consumption per capita: 4,842 kWh (1993)

Agriculture: grains, potatoes, sugar beets, hops, fruit; pigs,
cattle, poultry; forest products

Illicit drugs: transshipment point for Southwest Asian heroin and
Latin American cocaine to Western Europe

Exports: $17.4 billion (f.o.b., 1995 est.)
commodities: manufactured goods, machinery and transport equip