nearly 25% to GDP. Manufacturing, which includes
a number of agroprocessing factories, accounts for another quarter of GDP.
Mining has declined in importance in recent years; high-grade iron ore
deposits were depleted in 1978, and health concerns cut world demand for
asbestos. Exports of sugar and forestry products are the main earners of
hard currency. Surrounded by South Africa, except for a short border with
Mozambique, Swaziland is heavily dependent on South Africa, from which it
receives 75% of its imports and to which it sends about half of its exports.
National product:
GDP - exchange rate conversion - $700 million (1991 est.)
National product real growth rate:
2.5% (1991 est.)
National product per capita:
$800 (1991 est.)
Inflation rate (consumer prices):
13% (1991 est.)
Unemployment rate:
NA%
Budget:
revenues $342 million; expenditures $410 million, including capital
expenditures of $130 million (FY94 est.)
Exports:
$575 million (f.o.b., 1991)
commodities:
soft drink concentrates, sugar, wood pulp, citrus, canned fruit
partners:
South Africa 50% (est.), EC countries, Canada
Imports:
$730 million (c.i.f., 1991)
commodities:
motor vehicles, machinery, transport equipment, petroleum products,
foodstuffs, chemicals
partners:
South Africa 75% (est.), Japan, Belgium, UK
External debt:
$290 million (1990)
Industrial production:
growth rate NA%; accounts for 26% of GDP (1989)
Electricity:
60,000 kW capacity; 155 million kWh produced, 180 kWh per capita (1991)
Industries:
mining (coal and asbestos), wood pulp, sugar
Agriculture:
accounts for 23% of GDP and over 60% of labor force; mostly subsistence
agriculture; cash crops - sugarcane, cotton, maize, tobacco, rice, citrus
fruit, pineapples; other crops and livestock - corn, sorghum, peanuts,
cattle, goats, sheep; not self-sufficient in grain
Economic aid:
US commitments, including Ex-Im (FY70-89), $142 million; Western (non-US)
countries, ODA and OOF bilateral commitments (1970-89), $518 million
Currency:
1 lilangeni (E) = 100 cents
Exchange rates:
emalangeni (E) per US$1 -3.1576 (May 1993), 2.8497 (1992), 2.7563 (1991),
2.5863 (1990), 2.6166 (1989), 2.2611 (1988); note - the Swazi emalangeni is
at par with the South African rand

*Swaziland, Economy

Fiscal year:
1 April - 31 March

*Swaziland, Communications

Railroads:
297 km (plus 71 km disused), 1.067-meter gau