Overview: The economy, with large agrarian, mining, and manufacturing sectors, entered the 1990s with declining real growth, runaway inflation, an unserviceable foreign debt of $122 billion, and a lack of policy direction. In addition, the economy remained highly regulated, inward-looking, and protected by substantial trade and investment barriers. Ownership of major industrial and mining facilities is divided among private interests - including several multinationals - and the government. Most large agricultural holdings are private, with the government channeling financing to this sector. Conflicts between large landholders and landless peasants have produced intermittent violence. The COLLOR government, which assumed office in March 1990, launched an ambitious reform program that sought to modernize and reinvigorate the economy by stabilizing prices, deregulating the economy, and opening it to increased foreign competition. The government also obtained an IMF standby loan in January 1992 and reached agreements with commercial bankers on the repayment of interest arrears and on the reduction of debt and debt service payments. Galloping inflation - the rate doubled in 1992 - continues to undermine economic stability. Itamar FRANCO, who assumed the presidency following President COLLOR'S resignation in December 1992, has promised to support the basic premises of COLLOR'S reform program but has yet to define clearly his economic policies. Brazil's natural resources remain a major, long-term economic strength.

National product: GDP - exchange rate conversion - $369 billion (1992)

National product real growth rate: -0.2% (1992)

National product per capita: $2,350 (1992)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 1,174% (1992)

Unemployment rate: 5.9% (1992)

Budget: revenues $164.3 billion; expenditures $170.6 billion, including capital expenditures of $32.9 billion (1990)

External debt: $123.3 billion (December 1992)

Industrial production: growth rate -3.8% (1992); accounts for 39% of GDP

Electricity: 63,765,000 kW capacity; 242,184 million kWh produced, 1,531 kWh per capita (1992)

Industries: textiles and other consumer goods, shoes, chemicals, cement, lumber, iron ore, steel, motor vehicles and auto parts, metalworking, capital goods, tin

Agriculture: accounts for 11% of GDP; world's largest producer and exporter of coffee and orange juice concentrate and second- largest exporter of soybeans; other products - rice, corn, sugarcane, cocoa, beef; self-sufficient in food, except for wheat

Illicit drugs: illicit producer of cannabis and coca, mostly for domestic consumption; government has a modest eradication program to control cannabis and coca cultivation; important transshipment country for Bolivian and Colombian cocaine headed for the US and Europe

Economic aid: US commitments, including Ex-Im (FY70-89), $2.5 billion; Western (non-US) countries, ODA and OOF bilateral commitments (1970-89), $10.2 million; OPEC bilateral aid (1979-89), $284 million; former Communist countries (1970-89), $1.3 billion

Currency: 1 cruzeiro (Cr$)=100 centavos

Exchange rates: cruzeiros (Cr$) per US$1 - 13,827.06 (January 1993), 4,506.45 (1992), 406.61 (1991), 68.300 (1990), 2.834 (1989), 0.26238 (1988)

Fiscal year: calendar year