F 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.

National product: GDP - purchasing power parity - $12.3 billion (1994
estimate as extrapolated from World Bank estimate for 1992)

National product real growth rate: 2% (1994 est.)

National product per capita: $4,480 (1994 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 1.9% (monthly average 1994)

Unemployment rate: 6.5% (December 1994)

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

Exports: $1 billion (f.o.b., 1994)
commodities: oil products, timber, ferrous metals, dairy products,
furniture, textiles
partners: Russia, Germany, Sweden, Belarus

Imports: $1.2 billion (c.i.f., 1994)
commodities: fuels, cars, ferrous metals, chemicals
partners: Russia, Germany, Sweden, Ukraine

External debt: $NA

Industrial production: growth rate -9.5% (1994 est.); accounts for 27%
of GDP

Electricity:
capacity: 2,080,000 kW
production: 5.5 billion kWh
consumption per capita: 1,864 kWh (1993)

Industries: 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

Agriculture: principally dairy farming and livestock feeding; products
- meat, milk, eggs, grain, sugar beets, potatoes, vegetables; fishing
and fish packing

Illicit drugs: 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

Economic aid: $NA

Currency: 1 lat = 100 cents; introduced NA March 1993

Exchange rates: lats per US$1 - 0.55 (December 1994), 0.5917 (January
1994),