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France Economy 1998 https://greekorthodoxchurch.org/wfb1998/france/france_economy.html SOURCE: 1998 CIA WORLD FACTBOOK Economy - overview One of the four West European trillion-dollar economies, France matches a growing services sector with a diversified industrial base and substantial agricultural resources. Services now account for more than 70% of GDP, while industry generates about one-quarter of GDP and more than 80% of export earnings. The government retains considerable influence over key segments of each sector, with majority ownership of railway, electricity, aircraft, and telecommunication firms. It nevertheless has been slowly relaxing its control over these sectors since the early 1990s, most recently selling 23% of France Telecom. The government also plans to sell its stakes in Air France and in the insurance, banking, and defense industries. Meanwhile, large tracts of fertile land, the application of modern technology, and subsidies have combined to make France the leading agricultural producer in Western Europe. A major exporter of wheat and dairy products, France is virtually self-sufficient in agriculture. The economy expanded by 2.3% last year, following a 1.3% gain in 1996. Persistently high unemployment still poses a major problem for the government, however, as does the need to control government spending to keep the economy internationally competitive and meet membership qualifications for the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) which is slated to introduce a common European currency in January 1999. Succeeding governments have shied away from cutting exceptionally generous social welfare benefits or the enormous state bureaucracy, preferring to pare defense spending and raise taxes to keep the deficit down. The JOSPIN administration has pledged both to lower unemployment and bring France into EMU, pinning its hopes for new jobs on economic growth and on legislation to gradually reduce the workweek from 39 to 35 hours by 2002. GDP purchasing power parity - $1.32 trillion (1997 est.) GDP - real growth rate 2.3% (1997 est.) GDP - per capita purchasing power parity - $22,700 (1997 est.) GDP - composition by sector
Inflation rate - consumer price index 2% (1996) Labor force
Unemployment rate 12.4% (1997) Budget
Industries steel, machinery, chemicals, automobiles, metallurgy, aircraft, electronics, mining, textiles, food processing, tourism Industrial production growth rate 4% (1997 est.) Electricity - capacity 102.94 million kW (1995) Electricity - production 467.541 billion kWh (1995) Electricity - consumption per capita 6,841 kWh (1995) Agriculture - products wheat, cereals, sugar beets, potatoes, wine grapes; beef, dairy products; fish catch of 850,000 metric tons ranks among world's top 20 countries and is all used domestically Exports
Imports
Debt - external $117.6 billion (1996 est.) Economic aid
Currency 1 French franc (F) = 100 centimes Exchange rates French francs (F) per US$1 - 6.0836 (January 1998), 5.8367 (1997), 5.1155 (1996), 4.9915 (1995), 5.5520 (1994), 5.6632 (1993) Fiscal year
calendar year
NOTE: The information regarding France on this page is re-published from the 1998 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of France Economy 1998 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about France Economy 1998 should be addressed to the CIA. |