| Economy - overview: | The government of Zimbabwe faces a wide variety of difficult economic problems as it struggles with an unsustainable fiscal deficit, an overvalued exchange rate, soaring inflation, and bare shelves. Its 1998-2002 involvement in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, drained hundreds of millions of dollars from the economy. Badly needed support from the IMF has been suspended because of the country's failure to meet budgetary goals. Inflation rose from an annual rate of 32% in 1998 to 133% at the end of 2004 and 246.7% in 2005, while the exchange rate fell from 24 Zimbabwean dollars per US dollar to 15,200 in the same time period. The government's land reform program, characterized by chaos and violence, has badly damaged the commercial farming sector, the traditional source of exports and foreign exchange and the provider of 400,000 jobs. |
| GDP - per capita | $1,900 (2005 est.) |
| GDP - real growth rate (%) | -4% (2005 est.) |
| Agriculture - products | corn, cotton, tobacco, wheat, coffee, sugarcane, peanuts; sheep, goats, pigs |
| GDP - composition by sector (%) | agriculture: 17.9%, industry: 24.3%, services: 57.9% (2005 est.) |
| Industries | mining (coal, gold, platinum, copper, nickel, tin, clay, numerous metallic and nonmetallic ores), steel, wood products, cement, chemicals, fertilizer, clothing and footwear, foodstuffs, beverages |
| Economic aid - recipient | $178 million; note - the EU and the US provide food aid on humanitarian grounds (2000 est.) |
| Debt - external | $5.17 billion (2005 est.) |
| Population below poverty line (%) | 80% (2004 est.) |
| Labor force - by occupation (%) | agriculture 66%, industry 10%, services 24% (1996) |
Environment, Land use / Resources, Economy, Population / Demographics, Infrastructure, Health -- CIA World Factbook, 2005
