trade, and investment reforms since 1991
have provided new opportunities for Indian businesspersons and an
estimated 300 million middle class consumers. New Delhi has avoided
debt rescheduling, attracted foreign investment, and revived
confidence in India's economic prospects since 1991. Many of the
country's fundamentals--including savings rates (26% of GDP) and
reserves (now about $30 billion)--are healthy. Even so, the Indian
Government needs to restore the early momentum of reform, especially
by continuing reductions in the extensive remaining government
regulations. India's exports, currency, and foreign institutional
investment were affected by the East Asian crisis in late 1997 and
1998; but capital account controls, a low ratio of short-term debt
to reserves, and enhanced supervision of the financial sector helped
insulate it from near term balance-of-payments problems. Exports
fell 5% in 1998 mainly because of the fall in Asian currencies
relative to the rupee. Energy, telecommunications, and
transportation bottlenecks continue to constrain growth. A series of
weak coalition governments have lacked the political strength to
push reforms forward to address these and other problems. Indian
think tanks project GDP growth of about 4.5% in 1999. Inflation will
remain a worrisome problem.

GDP: purchasing power parity--$1.689 trillion (1998 est.)

GDP--real growth rate: 5.4% (1998 est.)

GDP--per capita: purchasing power parity?$1,720 (1998 est.)

GDP--composition by sector:
agriculture: 25%
industry: 30%
services: 45% (1997)

Population below poverty line: 35% (1994 est.)

Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: 4.1%
highest 10%: 25% (1994)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 14% (1998 est.)

Labor force: NA

Labor force--by occupation: agriculture 67%, services 18%,
industry 15% (1995 est.)

Unemployment rate: NA%

Budget:
revenues: $42.12 billion
expenditures: $63.79 billion, including capital expenditures of
$13.8 billion (FY98/99 budget est.)

Industries: textiles, chemicals, food processing, steel,
transportation equipment, cement, mining, petroleum, machinery

Industrial production growth rate: 5.5% (1997)

Electricity--production: 404.475 billion kWh (1996)

Electricity--production by source:
fossil fuel: 80.35%
hydro: 17.8%
nuclear: 1.83%
other: 0.02% (1996)

Electricity--consumption: 406.