products: aloes; livestock; fish

Exports: $2.58 billion (including oil reexports) (f.o.b., 2000)

Exports - commodities: live animals and animal products, art and
collectibles, machinery and electrical equipment, transport equipment

Exports - partners: US 42%, Colombia 20%, Netherlands 12% (1999)

Imports: $2.61 billion (f.o.b., 2000)

Imports - commodities: machinery and electrical equipment, crude oil
for refining and reexport, chemicals; foodstuffs

Imports - partners: US 63%, Netherlands 11%, Netherlands Antilles 3%,
Japan (1999)

Debt - external: $285 million (1996)

Economic aid - recipient: $26 million (1995); note - the Netherlands
provided a $127 million aid package to Aruba and Suriname in 1996

Currency: Aruban guilder/florin (AWG)

Currency code: AWG

Exchange rates: Aruban guilders/florins per US dollar - 1.7900 (fixed
rate since 1986)

Fiscal year: calendar year

Communications Aruba

Telephones - main lines in use: 33,000 (1997)

Telephones - mobile cellular: 3,402 (1997)

Telephone system: more than adequate international: interisland
microwave radio relay links

Radio broadcast stations: AM 4, FM 6, shortwave 0 (1998)

Radios: 50,000 (1997)

Television broadcast stations: 1 (1997)

Televisions: 20,000 (1997)

Internet country code: .aw

Internet Service Providers (ISPs): NA

Internet users: 4,000 (2000)

Transportation Aruba

Railways: 0 km

Highways: total: 800 km paved: 513 km note: most coastal roads are paved,
while unpaved roads serve large tracts of the interior (1995) unpaved:
287 km

Waterways: none

Ports and harbors: Barcadera, Oranjestad, Sint Nicolaas

Merchant marine: includes a foreign-owned ship registered here as a
flag of convenience: Airports: 1 (2001)

Airports - with paved runways: total: 1 2,438 to 3,047 m: 1 (2001)

Military Aruba

Military branches: no regular indigenous military forces; Royal Dutch
Navy and Marines, Coast Guard

Military - note: defense is the responsibility of the Kingdom of the
Netherlands

Transnational Issues Aruba

Disputes - international: none

Illicit drugs: drug-money-laundering center and transit point for
narcotics bound for the US and Europe

This page was last updated on 1 January 2002

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Antigua and Barbuda

Introduction

Antigua and Barbuda

Background: The islands of Antigua