Overview: The economy is based on subsistence agriculture, which occupies more than 60% of the population and contributes 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 90% of its imports and to which it sends about half of its exports.

National product: GDP - purchasing power equivalent - $2.3 billion (1993 est.)

National product real growth rate: 1% (1993 est.)

National product per capita: $2,500 (1993 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 11% (1993 est.)

Unemployment rate: 15% (1992 est.)

Budget:
revenues: $342 million
expenditures: $410 million, including capital expenditures of $130 million (1994 est.)

Exports: $632 million (f.o.b., 1993 est.)
commodities: sugar, edible concentrates, wood pulp, canned fruit, citrus
partners: South Africa 50% (est.), EC countries, Canada

Imports: $734 million (f.o.b., 1993 est.)
commodities: motor vehicles, machinery, transport equipment, petroleum products, foodstuffs, chemicals
partners: South Africa 90% (est.), Switzerland, UK

External debt: $240 million (1992)

Industrial production: growth rate 2.6% (1991); accounts for 40% of GDP (1989)

Electricity:
capacity: 60,000 kW
production: 198 million kWh (1991)
consumption per capita: 180 kWh (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:
recipient: bilateral aid (1991) $35 million of which US disbursements $12 million, UK disbursements $6 million, and Denmark $2 million; multilateral aid (1991) $24 million of which EC disbursements $8 million

Currency: 1 lilangeni (E) = 100 cents
Exchange rates: emalangeni (E) per US$1 -3.4551 (March 1994), 3.2636 (1993), 2.8497 (1992), 2.7563 (1991), 2.5863 (1990), 2.6166 (1989); note - the Swazi emalangeni is at par with the South African rand

Fiscal year: 1 April - 31 March

NOTE: The information regarding Swaziland on this page is re-published from the 1995 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Swaziland Economy 1995 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Swaziland Economy 1995 should be addressed to the CIA.