services

Unemployment rate: 20% (1997)

Budget:
revenues: $317 million
expenditures: $333 million, including capital expenditures of $52
million (1997 est.)

Industries: bauxite and gold mining, alumina and aluminum production,
lumbering, food processing, fishing

Industrial production growth rate: 6.5% (1994 est.)

Electricity-capacity: 425,000 kW (1995)

Electricity-production: 1.601 billion kWh (1995)

Electricity-consumption per capita: 3,727 kWh (1995)

Agriculture-products: paddy rice, bananas, palm kernels, coconuts,
plantains, peanuts; beef, chicken; forest products and shrimp of
increasing importance

Exports:
total value: $434.3 million (f.o.b., 1996 est.)
commodities: alumina, aluminum, shrimp and fish, rice, bananas
partners: Norway 33%, Netherlands 26%, US 13%, Japan 6%, Brazil 6%, UK
3% (1994)

Imports:
total value: $490 million (f.o.b., 1997 est.)
commodities: capital equipment, petroleum, foodstuffs, cotton,
consumer goods
partners: US 40%, Netherlands 24%, Trinidad and Tobago 11%, Japan 3%
(1994)

Debt-external: $216 million (1996 est.)

Economic aid:
recipient: the Netherlands provided a 1996 aid package of $224 million
to Suriname, Aruba, and the Netherlands Antilles

Currency: 1 Surinamese guilder, gulden, or florin (Sf.) = 100 cents

Exchange rates: Surinamese guilders, gulden, or florins (Sf.) per
US$1-central bank midpoint rate: 401.00 (January 1998), 401.00 (1997),
401.26 (1996), 442.23 (1995), 134.12 (1994); parallel rate: 412
(December 1995), 510 (December 1994), 109 (January 1994)
note: beginning July 1994, the central bank midpoint exchange rate was
unified and became market determined

Fiscal year: calendar year

Communications

Telephones: 43,522 (1992 est.)

Telephone system: international facilities good
domestic: microwave radio relay network
international: satellite earth stations-2 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean)

Radio broadcast stations: AM 5, FM 32, shortwave 1

Radios: 290,256 (1993 est.)

Television broadcast stations: 10 (1998 est.)

Televisions: 59,598 (1993 est.)

@Suriname:Transportation

Railways:
total: 166 km (single track)
standard gauge: 80 km 1.435-m gauge
narrow gauge: 86 km 1.000-m gauge

Highways:
total: 4,530 km
paved: 1,178 km
unpaved: 3,352 km (1996 est.)

Waterways: 1,200 km; most important means of transport; oceangoing
vessels with drafts ranging up to 7 m can navigate many of the
principal waterways

Ports and harbor