(1989); real growth rate 3.0% (1991 est.)
_#_Inflation rate (consumer prices): 7% (1990 est.)
_#_Unemployment rate: 5.0% (1988 est.)
_#_Budget: revenues $92.8 million; expenditures $101 million, including capital expenditures of $NA (1990 est.)
_#_Exports: $33.2 million (f.o.b., 1990 est.);
commodities—petroleum products 48%, manufactures 23%, food and live animals 4%, machinery and transport equipment 17%;
partners—OECS 26%, Barbados 15%, Guyana 4%, Trinidad and Tobago 2%, US 0.3%
_#_Imports: $358.2 million (c.i.f., 1990 est.);
commodities—food and live animals, machinery and transport equipment, manufactures, chemicals, oil;
partners—US 27%, UK 16%, Canada 4%, OECS 3%, other 50%
_#_External debt: $250 million (1990 est.)
_#_Industrial production: growth rate 3% (1989 est.); accounts for 9% of GDP
_#_Electricity: 52,000 kW capacity; 95 million kWh produced, 1,490 kWh per capita (1990)
_#_Industries: tourism, construction, light manufacturing (clothing, alcohol, household appliances)
_#_Agriculture: accounts for 4% of GDP; expanding output of cotton, fruits, vegetables, and livestock sector; other crops—bananas, coconuts, cucumbers, mangoes, sugarcane; not self-sufficient in food
_#_Economic aid: US commitments, $10 million (1985–88); Western (non-US) countries, ODA and OOF bilateral commitments (1970–88), $45 million
_#_Currency: East Caribbean dollar (plural—dollars); 1 EC dollar (EC$) = 100 cents
_#_Exchange rates: East Caribbean dollars (EC$) per US$1—2.70 (fixed rate since 1976)
_#_Fiscal year: 1 April-31 March
_*Communications #_Railroads: 64 km 0.760-meter narrow gauge and 13 km 0.610-meter gauge used almost exclusively for handling sugarcane
_#_Highways: 240 km
_#_Ports: Saint John's
_#_Merchant marine: 86 ships (1,000 GRT or over) totaling 319,477 GRT/497,194 DWT; includes 61 cargo, 5 refrigerated cargo, 6 container, 4 roll-on/roll-off cargo, 1 multifunction large load carrier, 3 petroleum, oils, and lubricants (POL) tanker, 6 chemical tanker; note—a flag of convenience registry
_#_Civil air: 10 major transport aircraft
_#_Airports: 3 total, 3 usable; 2 with permanent-surface runways; 1 with runways 2,440–3,659 m; 2 with runways less than 1,220 m
_#_Telecommunications: good automatic telephone system; 6,700 telephones; tropospheric scatter links with Saba and Guadeloupe; stations—4 AM, 2 FM, 2 TV, 2 shortwave; 1 coaxial submarine cable; 1 Atlantic Ocean INTELSAT earth station
_*Defense Forces #_Branches: Royal Antigua and Barbuda Defense Force, Royal Antigua and Barbuda Police Force (includes the Coast Guard)
_#_Manpower availability: NA
_#Defense expenditures: $1.4 million, less than 1% of GDP (FY91) % @Arctic Ocean *Geography #_Total area: 14,056,000 km2; includes Baffin Bay, Barents Sea, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, East Siberian Sea, Greenland Sea, Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, and other tributary water bodies
_#_Comparative area: slightly more than 1.5 times the size of the US; smallest of the world's four oceans (after Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, and Indian Ocean)
_#_Coastline: 45,389 km
_#_Climate: persistent cold and relatively narrow annual temperature ranges; winters characterized by continuous darkness, cold and stable weather conditions, and clear skies; summers characterized by continuous daylight, damp and foggy weather, and weak cyclones with rain or snow
_#_Terrain: central surface covered by a perennial drifting polar icepack which averages about 3 meters in thickness, although pressure ridges may be three times that size; clockwise drift pattern in the Beaufort Gyral Stream, but nearly straight line movement from the New Siberian Islands (USSR) to Denmark Strait (between Greenland and Iceland); the ice pack is surrounded by open seas during the summer, but more than doubles in size during the winter and extends to the encircling land masses; the ocean floor is about 50% continental shelf (highest percentage of any ocean) with the remainder a central basin interrupted by three submarine ridges (Alpha Cordillera, Nansen Cordillera, and Lomonsov Ridge); maximum depth is 4,665 meters in the Fram Basin
_#_Natural resources: sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, oil and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals, whales)
_#_Environment: endangered marine species include walruses and whales; ice islands occasionally break away from northern Ellesmere Island; icebergs calved from western Greenland and extreme northeastern Canada; maximum snow cover in March or April about 20 to 50 centimeters over the frozen ocean and lasts about 10 months; permafrost in islands; virtually icelocked from October to June; fragile ecosystem slow to change and slow to recover from disruptions or damage
_#_Note: major chokepoint is the southern Chukchi Sea (northern access to the Pacific Ocean via the Bering Strait); ships subject to superstructure icing from October to May; strategic location between North America and the USSR; shortest marine link between the extremes of eastern and western USSR; floating research stations operated by the US and USSR
_*Economy #_Overview: Economic activity is limited to the exploitation of natural resources, including crude oil, natural gas, fishing, and sealing.
_*Communications #_Ports: Churchill (Canada), Murmansk (USSR), Prudhoe Bay (US)
_#_Telecommunications: no submarine cables
_#Note: sparse network of air, ocean, river, and land routes; the Northwest Passage (North America) and Northern Sea Route (Asia) are important waterways % @Argentina *Geography #_Total area: 2,766,890 km2; land area: 2,736,690 km2
_#_Comparative area: slightly more than four times the size of Texas
_#_Land boundaries: 9,665 km total; Bolivia 832 km, Brazil 1,224 km, Chile 5,150 km, Paraguay 1,880 km, Uruguay 579 km
_#_Coastline: 4,989 km
_#_Maritime claims:
Continental shelf: 200 m (depth) or to depth of exploitation;
Territorial sea: 200 nm (overflight and navigation permitted beyond 12 nm)
_#_Disputes: short section of the boundary with Uruguay is in dispute; short section of the boundary with Chile is indefinite; claims British-administered Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas); claims British-administered South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; territorial claim in Antarctica
_#_Climate: mostly temperate; arid in southeast; subantarctic in southwest
_#_Terrain: rich plains of the Pampas in northern half, flat to rolling plateau of Patagonia in south, rugged Andes along
