Part 68

Budget: revenues: $4.95 billion expenditures: $5.47 billion, including capital expenditures of $NA (1996 est.)

Industries: tractors, metal-cutting machine tools, off-highway dump trucks up to 110-metric-ton load capacity, wheel-type earth movers for construction and mining, eight-wheel-drive, high-flotation trucks with cargo capacity of 25 metric tons for use in tundra and roadless areas, equipment for animal husbandry and livestock feeding, motorcycles, television sets, chemical fibers, fertilizer, linen fabric, wool fabric, radios, refrigerators, other consumer goods

Industrial production growth rate: -11% (1995 est.)

Electricity: capacity: 7,010,000 kW production: 24.9 billion kWh consumption per capita: 2,300 kWh (1995 est.)

Agriculture: grain, potatoes, vegetables; meat, milk

Illicit drugs: illicit cultivator of opium poppy and cannabis; mostly for the domestic market; transshipment point for illicit drugs to Western Europe

Exports: $4.2 billion (f.o.b., 1995) commodities: machinery and transport equipment, chemicals, foodstuffs partners: Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany

Imports: $4.6 billion (c.i.f., 1995) commodities: fuel, natural gas, industrial raw materials, textiles, sugar partners: Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany

External debt: $2 billion (September 1995 est.)

Economic aid: recipient: ODA, $186 million (1993) note: commitments, $3,930 million ($1,845 million disbursements), 1992-95

Currency: Belarusian rubel (BR)

Exchange rates: Belarusian rubels per US$1 - 11,500 (yearend 1995), 10,600 (yearend 1994)

Fiscal year: calendar year

Transportation --------------

Railways: total: 5,488 km broad gauge: 5,488 km 1.520-m gauge (873 km electrified) (1993)

Highways: total: 92,200 km paved: 61,000 km (including graveled) unpaved: 31,200 km (1994 est.)

Waterways: NA km; note - Belarus has extensive and widely used canal and river systems

Pipelines: crude oil 1,470 km; refined products 1,100 km; natural gas 1,980 km (1992)

Ports: Mazyr

Merchant marine: note: claims 5% of former Soviet fleet (1995 est.)

Airports: total: 118 with paved runways over 3 047 m: 2 with paved runways 2 438 to 3 047 m: 18 with paved runways 1 524 to 2 437 m: 5 with paved runways under 914 m: 11 with unpaved runways over 3 047 m: 1 with unpaved runways 2 438 to 3 047 m: 6 with unpaved runways 1 524 to 2 437 m: 4 with unpaved runways 914 to 1 523 m: 9 with unpaved runways under 914 m: 62 (1994 est.)

Communications --------------

Telephones: 1.849 million (1991 est.)

Telephone system: telephone service inadequate for the purposes of either business or the population; about 70% of the telephones are in homes; over 750,000 applications from households for telephones remain unsatisfied (1992 est.); new investment centers on international connections and business needs domestic: the new NMT-450 analog cellular system is now operating in Minsk international: international traffic is carried by the Moscow international gateway switch and also by satellite; satellite earth stations - 1 Intelsat (through Canada) and 1 Eutelsat (through the UK)

Radio broadcast stations: AM 35, FM 18, shortwave 0

Radios: 3.17 million (1991 est.) (5,615,000 with multiple speaker systems for program diffusion)

Television broadcast stations: 2 (one national and one private; the license of the private station was suspended during the parliamentary elections of 1994)

Televisions: 3.5 million (1992 est.)