Nepal Economy:
Nepal is among the poorest and least developed countries in the world with 40% of its population living below the poverty line. Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, providing a livelihood for over 80% of the population and accounting for 40% of GDP. Industrial activity mainly involves the processing of agricultural produce including jute, sugarcane, tobacco, and grain. Security concerns in the wake of the Maoist conflict have led to a decrease in tourism, a key source of foreign exchange. Nepal has considerable scope for exploiting its potential in hydropower and tourism, areas of recent foreign investment interest. Prospects for foreign trade or investment in other sectors will remain poor, however, because of the small size of the economy, its technological backwardness, its remoteness, its landlocked geographic location, its civil strife, and its susceptibility to natural disaster.
GDP (purchasing power parity):
$39.53 billion (2004 est.)
GDP — real growth rate:
3% (2004 est.)
GDP — per capita:
purchasing power parity: $1,500 (2004 est.)
GDP — composition by sector:
agriculture: 40%
industry: 20%
services: 40%
(2002)
Labor force:
10 million (1996 est.)
note: Severe lack of skilled labor
Labor force — by occupation:
agriculture: 81%, industry: 3%, services: 16%
Unemployment rate:
47% (2001 est.)
Population below poverty line:
42% (1995-96 est.)
Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: 3.2%
highest 10%: 29.8% (1995-96)
Distribution of family income — Gini index:
36.7 (FY95/96 est.)
Inflation rate (consumer prices):
2.9% (2002 est.)
Budget:
revenues: $665 million (FY99/00 est.)
expenditures: $1.1 billion including capital expenditures of NA (FY99/00 est.)
Agriculture — products:
Rice, corn, wheat, sugarcane, root crops; milk, water buffalo meat
Industries:
tourism, carpet, textile; small rice, jute, sugar, and oilseed mills; cigarette; cement and brick production
Industrial production growth rate:
8.7% (FY99/00 est.)
Electricity — production:
2.05 billion kWh (2002 est.)
Electricity — consumption:
2.01 billion kWh (2002 est.)
Electricity — exports:
142 million kWh (2002 est.)
Electricity — imports:
237 million kWh (2002 est.)
Oil — production:
0 bbl/day (2001 est.)
Oil — consumption:
16,000 bbl/day (2001 est.)
Oil — exports:
NA
Oil — imports:
NA
Exports:
$568 million but does not include unrecorded border trade with India (f.o.b. 2002 est.)
Exports — commodities:
carpets, clothing, leather goods, jute goods, grain
Exports — partners:
India 47.4%, US 22.7%, Germany 8.4% (2004)
Imports:
$1.42 billion (f.o.b., 2002 est.)
Imports — commodities:
gold, machinery and equipment, petroleum products, fertilizer
Imports — partners:
India 46.3%, China 10.8%, UAE 9.3%, Saudi Arabia 4.1%, (2004)
Debt — external:
$2.7 billion (2001 est.)
Economic aid — recipient:
$424 million (FY00/01 est.)
Currency:
Nepalese rupee (NPR)
Exchange rates:
Nepalese rupees per US$: 73.67 (2004 est.), 76.14 (2003 est.), 77.88 (2002 est.), 74.95 (2001 est.), 71.09 (2000 est.)
Fiscal year:
16 July - 15 July
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