penditures: $6 billion, including capital expenditures of $1.7
billion (1996 est.)

Industries: food processing, garments, shoes, machine building,
mining, cement, chemical fertilizer, glass, tires, oil, coal, steel,
paper

Industrial production growth rate: 12% (1998 est.)

Electricity--production: 14.88 billion kWh (1996)

Electricity--production by source:
fossil fuel: 12.1%
hydro: 84%
nuclear: 0%
other: 3.9% (1996)

Electricity--consumption: 14.88 billion kWh (1996)

Electricity--exports: 0 kWh (1996)

Electricity--imports: 0 kWh (1996)

Agriculture--products: paddy rice, corn, potatoes, rubber,
soybeans, coffee, tea, bananas; poultry, pigs; fish

Exports: $9.4 billion (f.o.b., 1998 est.)

Exports--commodities: crude oil, marine products, rice, coffee,
rubber, tea, garments, shoes

Exports--partners: Japan, Germany, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong,
France, South Korea

Imports: $11.4 billion (f.o.b., 1998 est.)

Imports--commodities: machinery and equipment, petroleum products,
fertilizer, steel products, raw cotton, grain, cement, motorcycles

Imports--partners: Singapore, South Korea, Japan, France, Hong
Kong, Taiwan

Debt--external: $7.3 billion Western countries; $4.5 billion CEMA
debts primarily to Russia; $9 billion to $18 billion nonconvertible
debt (former CEMA, Iraq, Iran)

Economic aid--recipient: $2.2 billion in credits and grants
pledged by international donors for 1999

Currency: 1 new dong (D) = 100 xu

Exchange rates: new dong (D) per US$1--13,900 (December 1998),
11,100 (December 1996), 11,193 (1995 average), 11,000 (October
1994), 10,800 (November 1993), 8,100 (July 1991)

Fiscal year: calendar year

Communications

Telephones: 800,000 (1995 est.)

Telephone system: while Vietnam's telecommunication sector lags
far behind other countries in Southeast Asia, Hanoi has made
considerable progress since 1991 in upgrading the system; Vietnam
has digitized all provincial switch boards, while fiber-optic and
microwave transmission systems have been extended from Hanoi, Da
Nang, and Ho Chi Minh City to all provinces; the density of
telephone receivers nationwide doubled from 1993 to 1995, but is
still far behind other countries in the region; Vietnam's
telecommunications strategy aims to increase telephone density to 30
per 1,000 inhabitants by the year 2000 and authorities estimate that
approximately $2.7 billion wi