LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR TBILISI ... - LED

Population: 5,042,920 (July 2006 est.)
Age structure:
0-14 years: 35.2% (male 913,988/female 863,503)
15-64 years: 60.7% (male 1,501,486/female 1,557,155)
65 years and over: 4.1% (male 79,227/female 127,561) (2006 est.)
GDP
GDP - purchasing power parity - 39.54 billion USD
GDP - official exchange rate - 6.77 billion USD
GDP - per capita (PPP) - 8000 USD
population below poverty line - 58 %
Budget – gov. (2005)
Revenues: 1.401 billion USD
Expenditures: 1.542 billion USD
Inflation rate 10,5 %
Unemployment rate 60% (2005)
5 provinces (welayatlar, singular - welayat): Ahal Welayaty (Ashgabat), Balkan Welayaty
(Balkanabat), Dashoguz Welayaty, Lebap Welayaty (Turkmenabat), Mary Welayaty note:
administrative divisions have the same names as their administrative centers (exceptions
have the administrative center name following in parentheses)
Turkmenistan is a largely desert country with intensive agriculture in irrigated oases and
large gas and oil resources. One-half of its irrigated land is planted in cotton; formerly it
was the world's tenth-largest producer. Poor harvests in recent years have led to an
almost 50% decline in cotton exports. With an authoritarian ex-Communist regime in
power and a tribally based social structure, Turkmenistan has taken a cautious approach
to economic reform, hoping to use gas and cotton sales to sustain its inefficient economy.
Privatization goals remain limited. In 1998-2005, Turkmenistan suffered from the
continued lack of adequate export routes for natural gas and from obligations on
extensive short-term external debt. At the same time, however, total exports rose by 20%
to 30% per year in 2003-2005, largely because of higher international oil and gas prices.
In 2005, Ashgabat sought to raise natural gas export prices to its main customers, Russia
and Ukraine, from $44 per thousand cubic meters (tcm) to $66 per tcm. Overall prospects
in the near future are discouraging because of widespread internal poverty, the burden of
foreign debt, the government's irrational use of oil and gas revenues, and its unwillingness
to adopt market-oriented reforms. Turkmenistan's economic statistics are state secrets,
and GDP and other figures are subject to wide margins of error. In particular, the rate of
GDP growth is uncertain.