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Latvia Economy 1996
Latvia is rapidly becoming a dynamic market economy, rivaled only by Estonia
among the former Soviet states in the speed of its transformation. However,
the transition has been painful; in 1994 the IMF reported a 2% growth in
GDP, following steep declines in 1992-93. The government's tough monetary
policies and reform program have kept inflation at less than 2% a month,
supported a dynamic private sector now accounting for more than half of GDP,
and spurred the growth of trade ties with the West. Much of agriculture is
already privatized and the government plans to step up the pace of
privatization of state enterprises. Latvia thus is in the midst of recovery,
helped by the country's strategic location on the Baltic Sea, its
well-educated population, and its diverse - albeit largely obsolete -
industrial structure.
GDP - purchasing power parity - $12.3 billion (1994 estimate as extrapolated
from World Bank estimate for 1992)
-
National product real growth rate:
-
National product per capita:
-
Inflation rate (consumer prices):
1.9% (monthly average 1994)
$NA, including capital expenditures of $NA
$1 billion (f.o.b., 1994)
oil products, timber, ferrous metals, dairy products, furniture, textiles
Russia, Germany, Sweden, Belarus
$1.2 billion (c.i.f., 1994)
fuels, cars, ferrous metals, chemicals
Russia, Germany, Sweden, Ukraine
growth rate -9.5% (1994 est.); accounts for 27% of GDP
highly diversified; dependent on imports for energy, raw materials, and
intermediate products; produces buses, vans, street and railroad cars,
synthetic fibers, agricultural machinery, fertilizers, washing machines,
radios, electronics, pharmaceuticals, processed foods, textiles
principally dairy farming and livestock feeding; products - meat, milk,
eggs, grain, sugar beets, potatoes, vegetables; fishing and fish packing
transshipment point for illicit drugs from Central and Southwest Asia and
Latin America to Western Europe; limited producer of illicit opium; mostly
for domestic consumption; also produces illicit amphetamines for export
1 lat = 100 cents; introduced NA March 1993
lats per US$1 - 0.55 (December 1994), 0.5917 (January 1994), 1.32 (March
1993)
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