Since 1962, when France stationed military personnel in the region, French Polynesia has changed from a subsistence economy to one in which a high proportion of the work force is either employed by the military or supports the tourist industry. Tourism accounts for about one-fourth of GDP and is a primary source of hard currency earnings. The small manufacturing sector primarily processes agricultural products.
GDP: nominal - US$5.65 billion (2006)
GDP - real growth rate: -0.43% (in 2006)
GDP - per capita: nominal - US$21,999 (2006)
GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 3.1%
industry: 19%
services: 76.9% (2005)
Population below poverty line: NA%
Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: NA%
highest 10%: NA%
Inflation rate (consumer prices): 1.1% (2006)
Labor force: 65 870 (December 2005)
Labor force - by occupation: agriculture 13%, industry 19%, services 68% (2002)
Unemployment rate: 11.8% (1994 est.)
Budget:
revenues: $865 million
expenditures: $644,1 million, including capital expenditures of $185 million (1999)
Industries: tourism, pearls, agricultural processing, handicrafts, phosphates
Industrial production growth rate: NA%
Electricity - production: 477 GWh (2004)
Electricity - production by source:
fossil fuel: 59.72%
hydropower: 40.28%
nuclear power: 0%
other: 0% (1998)
Electricity - consumption: 443.6 GWh (2004)
Electricity - exports: 0 kWh (2004)
Electricity - imports: 0 kWh (2004)
Agriculture - products: fish, coconuts, vanilla, vegetables, fruits, coffee, poultry, beef, dairy products
Exports: US$0.2 billion (2008)
Exports - commodities: cultured pearls 50%, coconut products, mother-of-pearl, vanilla, shark meat (1997)
Exports - partners: Hong Kong 41%, Metropolitan France 20%, Japan 14%, United States 8% (2008)
Imports: $2.2 billion (2008)
Imports - commodities: fuels, foodstuffs, equipment
Imports - partners: Metropolitan France 30%, Singapore 14%, United States 10%, China 7%, New Zealand 6%, Australia 3% (2008)
Debt - external: $NA
Economic aid - recipient: $580 million (2004)
Currency: 1 Comptoirs Francais du Pacifique franc (CFPF) = 100 centimes
Exchange rates: Comptoirs Francais du Pacifique francs (CFPF) per US$1 – 95.89 (2005), 96.04 (2004), 105.66 (2003), 126.71 (2002), 133.26 (2001), 117.67 (January 2000), 111.93 (1999), 107.25 (1998), 106.11 (1997), 93.00 (1996), 90.75 (1995); note - linked at the exact official rate of 0.055 French francs to one Pacifique franc. Now that France has switched its currency to the euro, this static link remains true, at the rate of about 119.26 Pacifique franc to one euro (1 euro being exactly 6.55957 French francs).
Fiscal year: calendar year
Famous quotes containing the words economy of, economy and/or french:
“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Quidquid luce fuit tenebris agit: but also the other way around. What we experience in dreams, so long as we experience it frequently, is in the end just as much a part of the total economy of our soul as anything we “really” experience: because of it we are richer or poorer, are sensitive to one need more or less, and are eventually guided a little by our dream-habits in broad daylight and even in the most cheerful moments occupying our waking spirit.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“In bourgeois society, the French and the industrial revolution transformed the authorization of political space. The political revolution put an end to the formalized hierarchy of the ancien regimé.... Concurrently, the industrial revolution subverted the social hierarchy upon which the old political space was based. It transformed the experience of society from one of vertical hierarchy to one of horizontal class stratification.”
—Donald M. Lowe, U.S. historian, educator. History of Bourgeois Perception, ch. 4, University of Chicago Press (1982)