ome or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: 3.1%
highest 10%: 24.9% (1993)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 10% (1998 est.)

Labor force: 8.8 million (1997)

Labor force--by occupation: industry 27%, agriculture and forestry
23%, other 50% (1996)

Unemployment rate: 13.7% (1998 est.)

Budget:
revenues: $2.9 billion
expenditures: $4.2 billion, including capital expenditures of $NA
(1998 est.)

Industries: oil, coal, iron ore, manganese, chromite, lead, zinc,
copper, titanium, bauxite, gold, silver, phosphates, sulfur, iron
and steel, nonferrous metal, tractors and other agricultural
machinery, electric motors, construction materials; much of
industrial capacity is shut down and/or is in need of repair

Industrial production growth rate: -2.1% (1998 est.)

Electricity--production: 52 billion kWh (1997)

Electricity--production by source:
fossil fuel: 86.3%
hydro: 13.6%
nuclear: 0.1%
other: 0% (1997)

Electricity--consumption: 64.34 billion kWh (1996)

Electricity--exports: 1.75 billion kWh (1996)

Electricity--imports: 8.5 billion kWh (1996)

Agriculture--products: grain (mostly spring wheat), cotton; wool,
livestock

Exports: $6.3 billion (1998 est.)

Exports--commodities: oil, ferrous and nonferrous metals,
chemicals, grain, wool, meat, coal

Exports--partners: Russia, UK, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Netherlands,
China, Italy, Germany (1997)

Imports: $7.4 billion (1998 est.)

Imports--commodities: machinery and parts, industrial materials,
oil and gas, consumer goods

Imports--partners: Russia, Ukraine, US, Uzbekistan, Turkey, UK,
Germany, South Korea (1997)

Debt--external: $3.1 billion (1998 est.)

Economic aid--recipient: $409.6 million (1995)

Currency: 1 Kazakhstani tenge = 100 tiyn

Exchange rates: tenges per US$1--85.2 (February 1999), 78.30
(1998), 75.44 (1997), 67.30 (1996), 60.95 (1995), 35.54 (1994)

Fiscal year: calendar year

Communications

Telephones: 2 million (1997)

Telephone system: service is poor
domestic: landline and microwave radio relay; AMPS standard cellular
systems are available in most of Kazakhstan
international: international traffic with other former Soviet
republics and China carried by landline and microwave radio relay
and with other countries by satellite and through 8 international
telecommunications circuits at the Moscow international gateway
switch; satellite earth station