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India Economy 1996
India's economy is a mixture of traditional village farming, modern
agriculture, handicrafts, a wide range of modern industries, and a multitude
of support services. Faster economic growth in the 1980s permitted a
significant increase in real per capita private consumption. A large share
of the population, perhaps as much as 40%, remains too poor to afford an
adequate diet. Financial strains in 1990 and 1991 prompted government
austerity measures that slowed industrial growth but permitted India to meet
its international payment obligations without rescheduling its debt.
Production, trade, and investment reforms since 1991 have provided new
opportunities for Indian businessmen and an estimated 100 million to 200
million middle class consumers. New Delhi has always paid its foreign debts
on schedule and has stimulated exports, attracted foreign investment, and
revived confidence in India's economic prospects. Foreign exchange reserves,
precariously low three years ago, now total more than $19 billion. Positive
factors for the remainder of the 1990s are India's strong entrepreneurial
class and the central government's recognition of the continuing need for
market-oriented approaches to economic development, for example in upgrading
the wholly inadequate communications facilities. Negative factors include
the desperate poverty of hundreds of millions of Indians and the impact of
the huge and expanding population on an already overloaded environment.
GDP - purchasing power parity - $1.2539 trillion (1994 est.)
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National product real growth rate:
-
National product per capita:
-
Inflation rate (consumer prices):
$48.35 billion, including capital expenditures of $10.5 billion (FY93/94)
$24.4 billion (f.o.b., 1994 est.)
clothing, gems and jewelry, engineering goods, chemicals, leather
manufactures, cotton yarn, and fabric
US, Japan, Germany, UK, Hong Kong
$25.5 billion (c.i.f., 1994 est.)
crude oil and petroleum products, machinery, gems, fertilizer, chemicals
US, Germany, Saudi Arabia, UK, Belgium, Japan
$89.2 billion (November 1994)
growth rate 7% (1994 est.); accounts for 28% of GDP
textiles, chemicals, food processing, steel, transportation equipment,
cement, mining, petroleum, machinery
accounts for 34% of GDP; principal crops - rice, wheat, oilseeds, cotton,
jute, tea, sugarcane, potatoes; livestock - cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats,
poultry; fish catch of about 3 million metric tons ranks India among the
world's top 10 fishing nations
licit producer of opium poppy for the pharmaceutical trade, but an
undetermined quantity of opium is diverted to illicit international drug
markets; major transit country for illicit narcotics produced in neighboring
countries; illicit producer of hashish and methaqualone; produced 82 metric
tons of illicit opium in 1994
US commitments, including Ex-Im (FY70-89), $4.4 billion; Western (non-US)
countries, ODA and OOF bilateral commitments (1980-89), $31.7 billion; OPEC
bilateral aid (1979-89), $315 million; USSR (1970-89), $11.6 billion;
Eastern Europe (1970-89), $105 million
1 Indian rupee (Re) = 100 paise
Indian rupees (Rs) per US$1 - 31.374 (January 1995), 31.374 (1994), 30.493
(1993), 25.918 (1992), 22.742 (1991), 17.504 (1990)
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