center; on the
hoist side is a "national ornamentation" in yellow

@Kazakhstan:Economy

Overview: Kazakhstan, the second largest of the former Soviet states
in territory, possesses enormous untapped fossil-fuel reserves as well
as plentiful supplies of other minerals and metals. It also has
considerable agricultural potential with its vast steppe lands
accommodating both livestock and grain production. Kazakhstan's
industrial sector rests on the extraction and processing of these
natural resources and also on a relatively large machine building
sector specializing in construction equipment, tractors, agricultural
machinery, and some defense items. The breakup of the USSR and the
collapse of demand for Kazakhstan's traditional heavy industry
products have resulted in a sharp contraction of the economy since
1991, with the steepest annual decline occurring in 1994. The
government has pursued a moderate program of economic reform and
privatization which is gradually lifting state controls over economic
activity and shifting assets into the private sector. Nevertheless,
government control over key sectors of the economy remains strong.
Sustained economic hardships and continued pressures from industrial
elites will make it difficult for the government to sustain its
policies of monetary and fiscal discipline which had brought down
inflation by the end of 1994. Continued lack of pipeline
transportation for expanded oil exports has closed off a likely source
of economic recovery.

National product: GDP - purchasing power parity - $55.2 billion (1994
estimate as extrapolated from World Bank estimate for 1992)

National product real growth rate: -25% (1994 est.)

National product per capita: $3,200 (1994 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 24% per month (1994 est.)

Unemployment rate: 1.1% includes only officially registered
unemployed; also large numbers of underemployed workers (1994)

Budget:
revenues: $NA
expenditures: $NA, including capital expenditures of $NA

Exports: $3.1 billion (1994)
commodities: oil, ferrous and nonferrous metals, chemicals, grain,
wool, meat, coal
partners: Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan

Imports: $3.5 billion (1994)
commodities: machinery and parts, industrial materials, oil and gas
partners: Russia and other former Soviet republics, China

External debt: less than $1 billion debt to Russia

Industrial production: growth rate -28% (1994