Overview: Czechoslovakia is highly industrialized and has a well-educated and skilled labor force. Its industry, transport, energy sources, banking, and most other means of production are state owned. The country is deficient, however, in energy and in many raw materials. Moreover, its aging capital plant lags well behind West European standards. Industry contributes almost 50% to GNP and construction contributes 10%. About 95% of agricultural land is in collectives or state farms. The centrally planned economy has been tightly linked in trade (80%) to the USSR and Eastern Europe. Growth has been sluggish, averaging less than 2% in the period 1982-89. GNP per capita is the highest in Eastern Europe. As in the rest of Eastern Europe, the sweeping political changes of 1989-90 have been disrupting normal channels of supply and compounding the government's economic problems. Having eased restrictions on private enterprise in 1990 and having adjusted some key prices, Czechoslovakia is now implementing a broad two-year program to make the difficult transition from a command to a market economy. Inflation and unemployment are beginning to rise, albeit from comparatively low levels.

GNP: $120.3 billion, per capita $7,700; real growth rate - 2.9% (1990 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 9% (1990 est.)

Unemployment rate: officially 0.8% (1990)

Budget: revenues $17.1 billion; expenditures $16.8 billion, including capital expenditures of $1.5 billion (1991)

Exports: $14.4 billion (f.o.b., 1989); commodities--machinery and equipment 42.7%; fuels, minerals, and metals 16.4%; agricultural and forestry products 12.5%, other 28.4%; partners--USSR, GDR, Poland, Hungary, FRG, Yugoslavia, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, US

Imports: $14.3 billion (f.o.b., 1989); commodities--machinery and equipment 38.6%; fuels, minerals, and metals 24.1%; agricultural and forestry products 16.4%; other 20.9%; partners--USSR, GDR, Poland, Hungary, FRG, Yugoslavia, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, US

External debt: $7.6 billion, hard currency indebtedness (September 1990)

Industrial production: growth rate - 3.3% (1990 est.); accounts for almost 50% of GDP

Electricity: 23,000,000 kW capacity; 90,000 million kWh produced, 5,740 kWh per capita (1990)

Industries: iron and steel, machinery and equipment, cement, sheet glass, motor vehicles, armaments, chemicals, ceramics, wood, paper products, footwear

Agriculture: accounts for 7% of GNP (includes forestry); largely self-sufficient in food production; diversified crop and livestock production, including grains, potatoes, sugar beets, hops, fruit, hogs, cattle, and poultry; exporter of forest products

Economic aid: donor--$4.2 billion in bilateral aid to non-Communist less developed countries (1954-89)

Currency: koruna (plural--koruny); 1 koruna (Kc) = 100 haleru

Exchange rates: koruny (Kcs) per US$1--27.65 (January 1991), 17.95 (1990), 15.05 (1989), 14.36 (1988), 13.69 (1987), 14.99 (1986), 17.14 (1985)

Fiscal year: calendar year

NOTE: The information regarding Czechoslovakia on this page is re-published from the 1991 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Czechoslovakia Economy 1991 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Czechoslovakia Economy 1991 should be addressed to the CIA.