, Vientiane, or
Box V, APO San Francisco 96346); telephone 2220, 2357, 2384

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

_*_Economy
_#_Overview: One of the world's poorest nations, Laos has had a
Communist centrally planned economy with government ownership and control
of productive enterprises of any size. Recently, however, the government
has been decentralizing control and encouraging private enterprise.
Laos is a landlocked country with a primitive infrastructure, that is,
it has no railroads, a rudimentary road system, limited external and
internal telecommunications, and electricity available in only a
limited area. Subsistence agriculture is the main occupation,
accounting for over 60% of GDP and providing about 85-90% of
total employment. The predominant crop is rice. For the foreseeable
future the economy will continue to depend for its survival on foreign
aid from the IMF and other international sources; foreign aid from the
USSR and Eastern Europe is being cut sharply.

_#_GDP: $600 million, per capita $150; real growth rate 5% (1990 est.)

_#_Inflation rate (consumer prices): 22% (1990 est.)

_#_Unemployment rate: 21% (1989 est.)

_#_Budget: revenues $83 million; expenditures $188.5 million,
including capital expenditures of $94 million (1990 est.)

_#_Exports: $72 million (f.o.b., 1990 est.);

commodities--electricity, wood products, coffee, tin;

partners--Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, USSR, US

_#_Imports: $238 million (c.i.f., 1990 est.);

commodities--food, fuel oil, consumer goods, manufactures;

partners--Thailand, USSR, Japan, France, Vietnam

_#_External debt: $1.1 billion (1990 est.)

_#_Industrial production: growth rate 8% (1989 est.); accounts
for about 20% of GDP

_#_Electricity: 176,000 kW capacity; 1,100 million kWh produced,
270 kWh per capita (1990)

_#_Industries: tin mining, timber, electric power, agricultural
processing, construction

_#_Agriculture: accounts for 60% of GDP and employs most of the
work force; subsistence farming predominates; normally self-sufficient
in non-drought years; principal crops--rice (80% of cultivated land),
sweet potatoes, vegetables, corn, coffee, sugarcane, cotton;
livestock--buffaloes, hogs, cattle, chicken

_#_Illicit drugs: illicit producer of cannabis and opium poppy for the
international drug trade

_#_Economic aid: U