GDP: purchasing power parity—$9.3 billion (1997 est.)

GDP—real growth rate: 6% (1997 est.)

GDP—per capita: purchasing power parity—$2 100 (1997 est.)

GDP—composition by sector:

agriculture: 34%

industry: 21%

services: 45% (1995)

Inflation rate—consumer price index: 11.6% (1996)

Labor force:

total: 1.5 million

by occupation: services 54% agriculture 31% industry 15% (1995 est.)

Unemployment rate: 16%; underemployment 36% (1996 est.)

Budget:

revenues: $389 million

expenditures: $551 million including capital expenditures of $NA (1996 est.)

Industries: food processing chemicals metal products textiles clothing petroleum refining and distribution beverages footwear

Industrial production growth rate: 1.4% (1994 est.)

Electricity—capacity: 457 000 kW (1995)

Electricity—production: 1.76 billion kWh (1995)

Electricity—consumption per capita: 416 kWh (1995)

Agriculture—products: coffee bananas sugarcane cotton rice corn cassava (tapioca) citrus beans; beef veal pork poultry dairy products

Exports:

total value: $635 million (f.o.b. 1996)

commodities: coffee seafood meat sugar gold bananas

partners: US Central America Germany Canada

Imports:

total value: $1.1 billion (c.i.f. 1996)

commodities: consumer goods machinery and equipment petroleum products

partners: Central America US Venezuela Japan

Debt—external: $6 billion (1996 est.)

Economic aid:

recipient: ODA $NA

Currency: 1 gold cordoba (C$) = 100 centavos

Exchange rates: gold cordobas (C$) per US$1—9.76 (October 1997) 8.44 (1996) 7.55 (1995) 6.72 (1994) 5.62 (1993)

Economy Sector

Agriculture and food production

Coffee became Nicaragua's principal crop in the 1870s, a position it still held in 1992 despite the growing importance of other crops. Cotton gained importance in the late 1940s, and in 1992 was the second biggest export earner. In the early 1900s, Nicaraguan governments were reluctant to give concessions to the large United States banana companies, and bananas never attained the level of prominence in Nicaragua that they reached in Nicaragua's Central American neighbors; bananas were grown in the country, however, and were generally the third largest export earner in the post-World War II period. Beef and animal byproducts , the most important agricultural export for the three centuries before the coffee boom of the late 1800s, were still important commodities in 1992.

From the end of World War II to the early 1960s, the growth and diversification of the agricultural sector drove the nation's economic expansion. From the early 1960s until the increased fighting in 1977 caused by the Sandinista revolution, agriculture remained a robust and significant part of the economy, although its growth slowed somewhat in comparison with the previous postwar decades. Statistics for the next fifteen years, however, show stagnation and then a drop in agricultural production.