on (1995)

Unemployment rate: NA%

Budget:
revenues: $477 million
expenditures: $706 million, including capital expenditures of $264
million (1996 est.)

Industries: meat processing, soap, breweries, tanneries, sugar,
textiles, glassware, cement, automobile assembly plant, paper,
petroleum, tourism

Industrial production growth rate: 3.8% (1993 est.)

Electricity--production: 595 million kWh (1996)

Electricity--production by source:
fossil fuel: 41.18%
hydro: 58.82%
nuclear: 0%
other: 0% (1996)

Electricity--consumption: 595 million kWh (1996)

Electricity--exports: 0 kWh (1996)

Electricity--imports: 0 kWh (1996)

Agriculture--products: coffee, vanilla, sugarcane, cloves, cocoa,
rice, cassava (tapioca), beans, bananas, peanuts; livestock products

Exports: $170 million (f.o.b., 1997)

Exports--commodities: coffee 45%, vanilla 20%, cloves, shellfish,
sugar, petroleum products (1995 est.)

Exports--partners: France 31.7%, Japan 15.8%, Germany 6.4%,
Reunion 5.7% (1996)

Imports: $477 million (f.o.b., 1997)

Imports--commodities: intermediate manufactures 30%, capital goods
28%, petroleum 15%, consumer goods 14%, food 13% (1995 est.)

Imports--partners: France 31.0%, Iran 9.1%, South Africa 8.2%,
Japan 5.8%, US 5.0% (1996)

Debt--external: $4.4 billion (1996 est.)

Economic aid--recipient: $298.5 million (1995)

Currency: 1 Malagasy franc (FMG) = 100 centimes

Exchange rates: Malagasy francs (FMG) per US$1--5,468.5 (January
1999), 5,441.4 (1998), 5,090.9 (1997), 4,061.3 (1996), 4,265.6
(1995), 3,067.3 (1994)

Fiscal year: calendar year

Communications

Telephones: 34,000 (1994)

Telephone system: system is above average for Africa
domestic: open-wire lines, coaxial cables, microwave radio relay,
and tropospheric scatter links
international: submarine cable to Bahrain; satellite earth
stations--1 Intelsat (Indian Ocean) and 1 Intersputnik (Atlantic
Ocean region)

Radio broadcast stations: AM 17, FM 3, shortwave 0

Radios: 2.74 million (1994 est.)

Television broadcast stations: 1 (in addition, there are 36
repeaters) (1997)

Televisions: 280,000 (1994 est.)

Transportation

Railways:
total: 883 km
narrow gauge: 883 km 1.000-m gauge (1994)

Highways:
total: 49,837 km
paved: 5,781 km
unpaved: 44,056 km (1996 est.)

Waterways: of local importance only; isolated streams and small
portions of Lakandrano