Economic overview:

India’s economy encompasses traditional village farming modern agriculture handicrafts a wide range of modern industries and a multitude of support services. 67% of India’s labor force of nearly 400 million work in agriculture which contributes 30% of the country’s GDP. Production trade and investment reforms since 1991 have provided new opportunities for Indian businesspersons and an estimated 300 million middle class consumers.

New Delhi has avoided debt rescheduling attracted foreign investment and revived confidence in India’s economic prospects since 1991. Many of the country’s fundamentals - including savings rates (26% of GDP) and reserves (now about $24 billion) - are healthy. Inflation eased to 7% in 1997 and interest rates dropped to between 10% and 13%. Even so the Indian Government needs to restore the early momentum of reform especially by continuing reductions in the extensive remaining government regulations.

Moreover economic policy changes have not yet significantly increased jobs or reduced the risk that international financial strains will reemerge within the next few years. Nearly 40% of the Indian population remains too poor to afford an adequate diet. India’s exports currency and foreign institutional investment were affected by the East Asian crisis in late 1997 and early 1998 but capital account controls a low ratio of short-term debt to reserves and enhanced supervision of the financial sector helped insulate it from near term balance-of-payments problems. Export growth has been slipping in 1996-97 averaging only about 4% to 5%—a large drop from the more than 20% increases it was experiencing over the prior three years—mainly because of the fall in Asian currencies relative to the rupee. Energy telecommunications and transportation shortages and the legacy of inefficient factories constrain industrial growth which expanded only 6.7% in 1997—down from more than 11% in 1996. Growth of the agricultural sector is still fairly slow rebounding to only 5.7% in 1997 from a fall of 0.1% in 1996. Agricultural investment has slowed while costly subsidies on fertilizer food distribution and rural electricity remain. Nevertheless even if a series of weak coalition governments continue to rule in New Delhi over the next few years and are unable to push reforms aggressively parts of the economy that have already benefited from deregulation will continue to grow. Indian think tanks project GDP growth of at least 5.5% in 1998.

GDP: purchasing power parity—$1.534 trillion (1997 est.)

GDP—real growth rate: 5% (1997 est.)

GDP—per capita: purchasing power parity—$1 600 (1997 est.)

GDP—composition by sector:
agriculture: 30%
industry: 28%
services: 42% (1996 est.)

Inflation rate—consumer price index: 7% (1997 est.)

Labor force:
total: 390 million (1997 est.)
by occupation: agriculture 67% services 18% industry 15% (1995 est.)

Unemployment rate: NA%

Budget:
revenues: $39 billion
expenditures: $61 billion including capital expenditures of $10 billion (FY97/98 est.)

Industries: textiles chemicals food processing steel transportation equipment cement mining petroleum machinery

Industrial production growth rate: 6.7% (1997 est.)

Electricity—capacity: 83.288 million kW (1996)

Electricity—production: 398.28 billion kWh (1995)

Electricity—consumption per capita: 427 kWh (1995)

Agriculture—products: rice wheat oilseed cotton jute tea sugarcane potatoes; cattle water buffalo sheep goats poultry; fish catch of about 3 million metric tons ranks India among the world’s top 10 fishing nations

Exports:
total value: $33.9 billion (f.o.b. 1997)
commodities: gems and jewelry clothing engineering goods chemicals leather manufactures cotton yarn and fabric
partners: US Hong Kong UK Germany

Imports:
total value: $39.7 billion (c.i.f. 1997)
commodities: crude oil and petroleum products machinery gems fertilizer chemicals
partners: US Belgium Germany Kuwait Saudi Arabia UK Japan

Debt—external: $90.7 billion (1997)

Economic aid:
recipient: ODA $1.237 billion (1993); US ODA bilateral commitments $171 million; US Ex-Im bilateral commitments $680 million; Western (non-US) countries ODA bilateral commitments $2.48 billion; OPEC bilateral aid $200 million; World Bank (IBRD) multilateral commitments $2.8 billion; Asian Development Bank (AsDB) multilateral commitments $760 million; International Finance Corporation (IFC) multilateral commitments $200 million; other multilateral commitments $554 million (1995-96)

Currency: 1 Indian rupee (Re) = 100 paise

Exchange rates: Indian rupees (Rs) per US$1—39.358 (January 1998) 36.313 (1997) 35.433 (1996) 32.427 (1995) 31.374 (1994) 30.493 (1993)

Fiscal year: 1 April—31 March

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Little Lasha, (Dharmasala) live, learn, help!
Check out earthville.net ! If you want to travel and make a diffrence, these people are really helpful! If you believe in the Tibetans cause, this is definatly a destination to check out! Lets do something about it! Free Tibet Peace, Love and equality for all!