variety of manufactured goods
(primarily capital goods and arms);

partners--Eastern Europe 46%, EC 16%, Cuba 6%, US, Afghanistan
(1989)

_#_Imports: $114.7 billion (c.i.f., 1989);

commodities--grain and other agricultural products, machinery and
equipment, steel products (including large-diameter pipe), consumer
manufactures;

partners--Eastern Europe 50%, EC 13%, Cuba, China, US (1989)

_#_External debt: $55 billion (1990)

_#_Industrial production: growth rate - 2.4% (1990 est.)

_#_Electricity: 350,000,000 kW capacity; 1,740,000 million kWh
produced, 5,920 kWh per capita (1990)

_#_Industries: diversified, highly developed capital goods and defense
industries; comparatively less developed consumer goods industries

_#_Agriculture: accounts for roughly 20% of GNP and labor force;
production based on large collective and state farms; inefficiently
managed; wide range of temperate crops and livestock produced; world's
third-largest grain producer after the US and China; shortages of grain,
oilseeds, and meat; world's leading producer of sawnwood and roundwood;
annual fish catch among the world's largest

_#_Illicit drugs: illegal producer of cannabis and opium poppy,
mostly for domestic consumption; government has begun eradication
program to control cultivation; used as a transshipment country
for illicit drugs to Western Europe

_#_Economic aid: donor--extended to non-Communist less developed
countries (1954-89), $49.6 billion; extended to other Communist countries
(1954-89), $154 billion

_#_Currency: ruble (plural--rubles); 1 ruble (R) = 100 kopeks

_#_Exchange rates: rubles (R) per US$1--0.580 (1990),
0.629 (1989), 0.629 (1988), 0.633 (1987), 0.704 (1986), 0.838 (1985);
note--as of 1 April 1991 the official exchange rate remained
administratively set; it should not be used indiscriminately to convert
domestic rubles to dollars; in November 1990 the USSR introduced a
commercial exchange rate of 1.8 rubles to the dollar used for accounting
purposes within the USSR and which was still in force on 1 April 1991;
on 1 April 1991 the USSR introduced a new foreign-currency
market for foreign companies and individuals; the rate will be fixed
twice a week based on supply and demand; as of 4 April 1991 the rate
was 27.6 rubles to the dollar; Soviet citizens traveling abroad
are restricted to buying $200 a year at prevailing rates

_#_Fiscal year: calendar year

_*_Communications