rate-consumer price index: 55% (1996 est.)

Labor force:
total: 8.6 million (1996 est.)
by occupation: agriculture and forestry 44%, industry and construction
20%, other 36% (1995)

Unemployment rate: 5% plus another 10% underemployed (December 1996
est.)

Budget:
revenues: $NA
expenditures: $NA, including capital expenditures of $NA

Industries: textiles, food processing, machine building, metallurgy,
natural gas

Industrial production growth rate: 6% (1996)

Electricity-capacity: 11.822 million kW (1995)

Electricity-production: 45.42 billion kWh (1996 est.)

Electricity-consumption per capita: 1,916 kWh (1996 est.)

Agriculture-products: cotton, vegetables, fruits, grain; livestock

Exports:
total value: $3.8 billion (1996)
commodities: cotton, gold, natural gas, mineral fertilizers, ferrous
metals, textiles, food products, autos
partners: Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, Western Europe

Imports:
total value: $4.7 billion (1996)
commodities: grain, machinery and parts, consumer durables, other
foods
partners: principally other FSU, Czech Republic, Western Europe

Debt-external: $2.3 billion (of which $510 million to Russia) (1996
est.)

Economic aid:
recipient: ODA, $71 million (1993)
note: commitments, $2,915 million ($135 million in disbursements)
(1992-95)

Currency: introduced provisional som-coupons 10 November 1993 which
circulated parallel to the Russian rubles; became the sole legal
currency 31 January 1994; was replaced in July 1994 by the som
currency

Exchange rates: Uzbekistani soms (UKS) per US$1-75.8 (September 1997),
41.1 (1996), 30.2 (1995), 11.4 (1994), 1.0 (1993)

Fiscal year: calendar year

Communications

Telephones: 1.458 million (1995 est.)

Telephone system: poorly developed
domestic: NMT-450 analog cellular network established in Tashkent
international: linked by landline or microwave radio relay with CIS
member states and to other countries by leased connection via the
Moscow international gateway switch; new Intelsat links to Tokyo and
Ankara give Uzbekistan international access independent of Russian
facilities; satellite earth stations-NA Orbita and NA Intelsat

Radio broadcast stations: AM NA, FM NA, shortwave NA; note-there is at
least one state-owned broadcast station of NA type

Radios: NA

Television broadcast stations: 2 national, over 30 local

Televisions: NA

@Uzbekistan:Transportation

Railways:
total: 3,380 km in common carrier servic