| Economy - overview: |
In this small landlocked economy, subsistence agriculture occupies more than 60% of the population. Manufacturing features a number of agroprocessing factories. Mining has declined in importance in recent years: diamond mines have shut down because of the depletion of easily accessible reserves; high-grade iron ore deposits were depleted by 1978; and health concerns have cut world demand for asbestos. Exports of soft drink concentrate, sugar, and wood pulp are the main earners of hard currency. Surrounded by South Africa, except for a short border with Mozambique, Swaziland is heavily dependent on South Africa from which it receives four-fifths of its imports and to which it sends two-thirds of its exports. Remittances from the Southern African Customs Union and Swazi workers in South African mines substantially supplement domestically earned income. The government is trying to improve the atmosphere for foreign investment. Overgrazing, soil depletion, drought, and sometimes floods persist as problems for the future. Prospects for 2001 are strengthened by government millennium projects for a new convention center, additional hotels, an amusement park, a new airport, and stepped-up roadbuilding and factory construction plans.
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| GDP: |
purchasing power parity - $4.4 billion (2000 est.)
|
| GDP - real growth rate: |
2.4% (2000 est.)
|
| GDP - per capita: |
purchasing power parity - $4,000 (2000 est.)
|
| GDP - composition by sector: |
agriculture:
10%
industry:
46%
services:
44% (1998 est.)
|
| Population below poverty line: |
NA%
|
| Household income or consumption by percentage share: |
lowest 10%:
NA%
highest 10%:
NA%
|
| Inflation rate (consumer prices): |
6.4% (2000 est.)
|
| Labor force - by occupation: |
private sector 70%, public sector 30%
|
| Unemployment rate: |
22% (1995 est.)
|
| Budget: |
revenues:
$400 million
expenditures:
$450 million, including capital expenditures of $115 million (FY96/97)
|
| Industries: |
mining (coal and asbestos), wood pulp, sugar, soft drink concentrates
|
| Industrial production growth rate: |
3.7% (FY95/96)
|
| Electricity - production: |
375 million kWh (1999)
|
| Electricity - production by source: |
fossil fuel:
53.33%
hydro:
46.67%
nuclear:
0%
other:
0% (1999)
|
| Electricity - consumption: |
198 million kWh (1999)
|
| Electricity - exports: |
852 million kWh (1999)
|
| Electricity - imports: |
701 million kWh
note:
supplied by South Africa (1999)
|
| Agriculture - products: |
sugarcane, cotton, corn, tobacco, rice, citrus, pineapples, sorghum, peanuts; cattle, goats, sheep
|
| Exports: |
$881 million (f.o.b., 2000)
|
| Exports - commodities: |
soft drink concentrates, sugar, wood pulp, cotton yarn, refrigerators, citrus and canned fruit
|
| Exports - partners: |
South Africa 65%, EU 12%, Mozambique 11%, US 5% (1998)
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| Imports: |
$928 million (f.o.b., 2000)
|
| Imports - commodities: |
motor vehicles, machinery, transport equipment, foodstuffs, petroleum products, chemicals
|
| Imports - partners: |
South Africa 84%, EU 5%, Japan 2%, Singapore 2% (1998)
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| Debt - external: |
$281 million (2000 est.)
|
| Economic aid - recipient: |
$55 million (1995)
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| Currency: |
lilangeni (SZL)
|
| Exchange rates: |
emalangeni per US dollar - 7.7803 (January 2001), 6.9056 (2000), 6.1087 (1999), 5.4807 (1998), 4.6032 (1997), 4.2706 (1996); note - the Swazi lilangeni is at par with the South African rand; emalangeni is the plural form of lilangeni
|
| Fiscal year: |
1 April - 31 March
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