Overview: Cote d'Ivoire is among the world's largest producers and exporters of coffee, cocoa beans, and palm-kernel oil. Consequently, the economy is highly sensitive to fluctuations in international prices for coffee and cocoa and to weather conditions. Despite attempts by the government to diversify, the economy is still largely dependent on agriculture and related industries. The agricultural sector accounts for over one-third of GDP and about 80% of export earnings and employs about 85% of the labor force. A collapse of world cocoa and coffee prices in 1986 threw the economy into a recession, from which the country has yet to fully recover. Continuing weak prices for commodity exports, a bloated public-sector wage bill, and a large foreign debt will continue to constrain economic development, this despite the 50% currency devaluation in January 1994 designed to restore international price competitiveness. A large, non-competitive import-substitution sector continues to thrive under steep tariff and import quota barriers.

National product: GDP - purchasing power equivalent - $21 billion (1993 est.)

National product real growth rate: NA

National product per capita: $1,500 (1993 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 1% (1991 est.)

Unemployment rate: 14% (1985)

Budget:
revenues: $2.3 billion
expenditures: $3.6 billion, including capital expenditures of $274 million (1990 est.)

Exports: $2.8 billion (f.o.b., 1990)
commodities: cocoa 30%, coffee 20%, tropical woods 11%, petroleum, cotton, bananas, pineapples, palm oil, cotton
partners: France, FRG, Netherlands, US, Belgium, Spain (1985)

Imports: $1.6 billion (f.o.b., 1990)
commodities: food, capital goods, consumer goods, fuel
partners: France 29%, other EC 29%, Nigeria 16%, US 4%, Japan 3% (1989)

External debt: $17.3 billion (1993 est.)

Industrial production: growth rate 6% (1990); accounts for 11% of GDP

Electricity:
capacity: 1,210,000 kW
production: 1.97 billion kWh
consumption per capita: 150 kWh (1991)

Industries: foodstuffs, wood processing, oil refinery, automobile assembly, textiles, fertilizer, beverage

Agriculture: most important sector, contributing one-third to GDP and 80% to exports; cash crops include coffee, cocoa beans, timber, bananas, palm kernels, rubber; food crops - corn, rice, manioc, sweet potatoes; not self-sufficient in bread grain and dairy products

Illicit drugs: illicit producer of cannabis; mostly for local consumption; some international drug trade; transshipment point for Southwest and Southeast Asian heroin to Europe and occasionally to the US

Economic aid:
recipient: US commitments, including Ex-Im (FY70-89), $356 million; Western (non-US) countries, ODA and OOF bilateral commitments (1970-88), $5.2 billion

Currency: 1 CFA franc (CFAF) = 100 centimes
Exchange rates: Communaute Financiere Africaine francs (CFAF) per US$1 - 592.05 (January 1994), 283.16 (1993), 264.69 (1992), 282.11 (1991), 272.26 (1990), 319.01 (1989)
note: beginning 12 January 1994, the CFA franc was devalued to CFAF 100 per French franc from CFAF 50 at which it had been fixed since 1948

Fiscal year: calendar year

NOTE: The information regarding Cote d'Ivoire on this page is re-published from the 1995 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Cote d'Ivoire Economy 1995 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Cote d'Ivoire Economy 1995 should be addressed to the CIA.