, a rapidly growing labor force
that cannot be absorbed by agriculture, delays in exploiting energy
resources (natural gas), inadequate power supplies, and slow
implementation of economic reforms. Prime Minister Sheikh HASINA
Wajed's Awami League government has made some headway improving the
climate for foreign investors and liberalizing the capital markets;
for example, it has negotiated with foreign firms for oil and gas
exploration, better countrywide distribution of cooking gas, and the
construction of natural gas pipelines and power plants. Progress on
other economic reforms has been halting because of opposition from the
bureaucracy, public sector unions, and other vested interest groups.
The especially severe floods of 1998 increased the country's reliance
on large-scale international aid. So far the East Asian financial
crisis has not had major impact on the economy.

GDP: purchasing power parity - $187 billion (1999 est.)

GDP - real growth rate: 5.2% (1999 est.)

GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $1,470 (1999 est.)

GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 30%
industry: 17%
services: 53% (1999 est.)

Population below poverty line: 35.6% (FY95/96 est.)

Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: 4.1%
highest 10%: 23.7% (1992)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 9% (FY98/99 est.)

Labor force: 56 million (1995-96)
note: extensive export of labor to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Oman,
Qatar, Malaysia, and Singapore

Labor force - by occupation: agriculture 63%, services 26%, industry
11% (FY95/96)

Unemployment rate: 35.2% (1996)

Budget:
revenues: $4.3 billion
expenditures: $6.5 billion, including capital expenditures of $NA
(1997)

Industries: cotton textiles, jute, garments, tea processing, paper
newsprint, cement, chemical fertilizer, light engineering, sugar

Industrial production growth rate: 2.5% (1997 est.)

Electricity - production: 12.5 billion kWh (1999 est.)

Electricity - production by source:
fossil fuel: 98%
hydro: 2%
nuclear: 0%
other: 0% (1999)

Electricity - consumption: 11.039 billion kWh (1998)

Electricity - exports: 0 kWh (1999)

Electricity - imports: 0 kWh (1999)

Agriculture - products: rice, jute, tea, wheat, sugarcane, potatoes;
beef, milk, poultry, tobacco, pulses, oilseeds, spices, fruit

Exports: $5.1 billion (1998)

Exports - commodities: garments, jute and jute goods, leather, frozen
fish and seafood

Exports - par