Overview: Czechoslovakia is highly industrialized and has a well-educated and skilled labor force. Its industry, transport, energy sources, banking, and most other means of production are state owned. The country is deficient, however, in energy and many raw materials. Moreover, its aging capital plant lags well behind West European standards. Industry contributes over 50% to GNP and construction 10%. About 95% of agricultural land is in collectives or state farms. The centrally planned economy has been tightly linked in trade (80%) to the USSR and Eastern Europe. Growth has been sluggish, averaging less than 2% in the period 1982-89. GNP per capita ranks next to the GDR as the highest in the Communist countries. As in the rest of Eastern Europe, the sweeping political changes of 1989 have been disrupting normal channels of supply and compounding the government's economic problems. Czechoslovakia is beginning the difficult transition from a command to a market economy.

GNP: $123.2 billion, per capita $7,878; real growth rate 1.0% (1989 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 1.5% (1989)

Unemployment rate: 0.9% (1987)

Budget: revenues $22.4 billion; expenditures $21.9 billion, including capital expenditures of $3.7 billion (1986 state budget)

Exports: $24.5 billion (f.o.b., 1988); commodities--machinery and equipment 58.5%; industrial consumer goods 15.2%; fuels, minerals, and metals 10.6%; agricultural and forestry products 6.1%, other products 15.2%; partners--USSR, GDR, Poland, Hungary, FRG, Yugoslavia, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, US

Imports: $23.5 billion (f.o.b., 1988); commodities--machinery and equipment 41.6%; fuels, minerals, and metals 32.2%; agricultural and forestry products 11.5%; industrial consumer goods 6.7%; other products 8.0%; partners--USSR, GDR, Poland, Hungary, FRG, Yugoslavia, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, US

External debt: $7.4 billion, hard currency indebtedness (1989)

Industrial production: growth rate 2.1% (1988)

Electricity: 22,955,000 kW capacity; 85,000 million kWh produced, 5,410 kWh per capita (1989)

Industries: iron and steel, machinery and equipment, cement, sheet glass, motor vehicles, armaments, chemicals, ceramics, wood, paper products, footwear

Agriculture: accounts for 15% of GNP (includes forestry); largely self-sufficient in food production; diversified crop and livestock production, including grains, potatoes, sugar beets, hops, fruit, hogs, cattle, and poultry; exporter of forest products

Aid: donor--$4.2 billion in bilateral aid to non-Communist less developed countries (1954-88)

Currency: koruna (plural--koruny); 1 koruna (Kc) = 100 haleru

Exchange rates: koruny (Kcs) per US$1--17.00 (March 1990), 10.00 (1989), 5.63 (1988), 5.43 (1987), 5.95 (1986), 6.79 (1985), 6.65 (1984)

Fiscal year: calendar year

NOTE: The information regarding Czechoslovakia on this page is re-published from the 1990 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Czechoslovakia Economy 1990 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Czechoslovakia Economy 1990 should be addressed to the CIA.