Unemployment rate: 7.9% (1998)

Budget:
revenues: $100.4 billion
expenditures: $100.5 billion, including capital expenditures of $NA
(1997 est.)

Industries: electronics, automobile production, chemicals,
shipbuilding, steel, textiles, clothing, footwear, food processing

Industrial production growth rate: 3.1% (1997 est.)

Electricity--production: 194.163 billion kWh (1996)

Electricity--production by source:
fossil fuel: 61.18%
hydro: 2.65%
nuclear: 36.17%
other: 0% (1996)

Electricity--consumption: 194.163 billion kWh (1996)

Electricity--exports: 0 kWh (1996)

Electricity--imports: 0 kWh (1996)

Agriculture--products: rice, root crops, barley, vegetables,
fruit; cattle, pigs, chickens, milk, eggs; fish

Exports: $133 billion (f.o.b., 1998)

Exports--commodities: electronic and electrical equipment,
machinery, steel, automobiles, ships; textiles, clothing, footwear;
fish

Exports--partners: US 17%, EU 13%, Japan 12% (1995)

Imports: $94 billion (c.i.f., 1998)

Imports--commodities: machinery, electronics and electronic
equipment, oil, steel, transport equipment, textiles, organic
chemicals, grains

Imports--partners: US 22%, Japan 21%, EU 13% (1995)

Debt--external: $154 billion (1998 est.)

Economic aid--recipient: $NA

Currency: 1 South Korean won (W) = 100 chun (theoretical)

Exchange rates: South Korean won (W) per US$1--1,174.00 (January
1999), 1,401.44 (1998), 951.29 (1997), 804.45 (1996), 771.27 (1995),
803.45 (1994)

Fiscal year: calendar year

Communications

Telephones: 16.6 million (1993)

Telephone system: excellent domestic and international services
domestic: NA
international: fiber-optic submarine cable to China; satellite earth
stations--3 Intelsat (2 Pacific Ocean and 1 Indian Ocean) and 1
Inmarsat (Pacific Ocean region)

Radio broadcast stations: AM 79, FM 46, shortwave 0

Radios: 42 million (1993 est.)

Television broadcast stations: 121 (in addition, there are 850
relay stations and eight-channel American Forces Korea Network)
(1997)

Televisions: 9.3 million (1992 est.)

Transportation

Railways:
total: 6,240 km
standard gauge: 6,240 km 1.435-m gauge (525 km electrified) (1998
est.)

Highways:
total: 63,500 km
paved: 46,800 km (including 1,720 km of expressways)
unpaved: 16,700 km (1998 est.)

Waterways: 1,609 km; use restricted to small native craft

Pipelines: petroleum p