The economy of Gabon is characterized by strong links with

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, large foreign investments, dependence on skilled foreign labor, and decline of agriculture.

Gabon Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north ...

enjoys a

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. Per capita i ...

four times that of most nations of

sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...

, its reliance on resource extraction industry releasing much of the population from

extreme poverty Extreme poverty, deep poverty, abject poverty, absolute poverty, destitution, or penury, is the most severe type of poverty, defined by the United Nations (UN) as "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, includi ...

Resources

The country is rich in natural resources such as timber,

manganese Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...

and oil. The country is the fifth largest oil producing nation in Africa, which has helped drive its strong growth in the later 20th century. The oil sector now accounts for 50% of

GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is ofte ...

and 80% of exports. Although there have been recent offshore finds, oil production is now declining from its peak of in 1997, and periods of low oil prices have had a negative impact on government revenues and the economy. In 2012 there were six active oil rigs in Gabon. The government has plans to diversify its economy away from its dwindling oil reserves. The government announced in 2012 that it would reassess exactly how much iron ore the

Belinga Belinga is a location in Gabon with as yet unexploited iron ore deposits. These ore deposits extend into neighbouring Cameroon and Congo. Mining The Belinga iron reserves were discovered in 1895.Douglas A. Yates, "Gabon", in ''Africa Yearbook ...

site contains before awarding the concession to a mining company, most likely to be

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

's CMEC, which temporarily secured the rights to the ore in 2007. Around 80% of Gabonese live in cities. The capital city, Libreville is home to 59% of the total population. Other parts of the country is still sparsely populated and those area remains highly forested.

Statistics

GDP - composition by sector:
''agriculture:'' 5.7%
''industry:'' 57.2%
''services:'' 37% (2008 est.) Population below poverty line: NA% Household income or consumption by percentage share:
''lowest 10%:'' NA%
''highest 10%:'' NA% Inflation rate (consumer prices): 5% (2008 est.) Labour force: 592,000 (2008 est.) Labour force - by occupation:

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

60%,

services Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a p ...

and

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

25%,

industry Industry may refer to: Economics * Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity * Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery * The wider industrial sector ...

and

commerce Commerce is the large-scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions directly and indirectly related to the exchange (buying and selling) of goods and services among two or more parties within local, regional, nation ...

15% (2000 est.) Unemployment rate: 21% (2006 est.) Budget:
''revenues:'' $4.46 billion
''expenditures:'' $2.75 billion (2008 est.) Industries:

food Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is inge ...

and

beverage A drink or beverage is a liquid intended for human consumption. In addition to their basic function of satisfying thirst, drinks play important roles in human culture. Common types of drinks include plain drinking water, milk, juice, smoo ...

;

textile Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

;

lumbering Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars. Logging is the beginning of a supply chain ...

and plywood;

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mi ...

;

petroleum extraction Petroleum is a fossil fuel that can be drawn from beneath the earth's surface. Reservoirs of petroleum was formed through the mixture of plants, algae, and sediments in shallow seas under high pressure. Petroleum is mostly recovered from oil dr ...

and refining;

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

, and

gold mining Gold mining is the extraction of gold resources by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. However, with the expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface ...

;

chemical production A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wit ...

;

ship repair Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to befo ...

Industrial production growth rate: 1.5% (2008) Oil - production (2007 est.) Oil - consumption (2007 est.) Oil - exports (2005 est.) Oil - imports (2005 est.) Oil - proven reserves (1 January 2008 est.) Natural gas - production 100 million cu m (2006 est.) Natural gas - consumption 100 million cu m (2006 est.) Natural gas - exports 0 cu m (2007 est.) Natural gas - imports 0 cu m (2007 est.) Natural gas - proven reserves 28.32 billion cu m (1 January 2008 est.) Electricity - production: 1.671 TWh (2006 est.) Electricity - production by source:
''fossil fuel:'' 27.8%
''hydro:'' 72.2%
''nuclear:'' 0%
''other:'' 0% (1998) Electricity - consumption: 1.365 GWh (2006 est.) Electricity - exports: 0 kWh (2006 est.) Electricity - imports: 0 kWh (1998) Agriculture - products:

cocoa Cocoa may refer to: Chocolate * Chocolate * ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree * Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao'' * Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...

coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. S ...

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

, palm oil,

rubber Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, and ...

;

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...

; okoume (a tropical

hardwood Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes from ...

);

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

Current account - balance $591 million (2010 est.) Currency: 1 Communauté financière africaine

franc The franc is any of various units of currency. One franc is typically divided into 100 centimes. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription ''francorum rex'' (King of the Franks) used on early French coins and until the 18th centu ...

( CFAF) = 100

centime Centime (from la, centesimus) is French for "cent", and is used in English as the name of the fraction currency in several Francophone countries (including Switzerland, Algeria, Belgium, Morocco and France). In France, the usage of ''centime' ...

s Exchange rates: Communauté financière africaine francs (CFAF) per US$1 – 507.71 (2010), 472.19 (2009), 447.81 (2008), 481.83 (2007), 522.89 (2006), 647.25 (January 2000), 615.70 (1999), 589.95 (1998), 583.67 (1997), 511.55 (1996), 499.15 (1995)
''note:'' since 1 January 1999, the CFAF is pegged to the euro at a rate of 655.957 CFA francs per euro

Statistics table

The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980–2017.

References

External links

*
Gabon latest trade data on ITC Trade Map

The Quicker Ticker- Gabon (in french)

Legabon.org

Gaboneco.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Economy of Gabon

Resources

Statistics

Statistics table

See also

References

External links