Economical overview
Equatorial Guinea's economy is almost
entirely based on oil and to some extent natural gas.
The economic significance of other activities, such as
the service sector and agriculture and forestry, is
negligible. However, attempts are being made to
diversify the economy, as production on the country's
three major oil fields has reached its maximum level,
while oil prices have fallen sharply.
The discovery of oil in the 1990s transformed
Equatorial Guinea into one of the world's fastest
growing economies (however, it came from a bottom
position with large deficits in the state budget and
trade balance after decades of neglect) and for a long
time growth was double-digit. Gross domestic product
(GDP) per inhabitant increased from $ 370 in 1995 to
over $ 20,000 in 2013. Between 2003 and 2012, GDP
increased by an average of 7.6 percent per year. On
paper, Equatorial Guinea was Africa's richest country
per capita.
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Countryaah.com:
Major imports by Equatorial Guinea, covering a full list of top products imported by the country and trade value for each product category.
At the same time, the gaps in the country were larger
than in almost any other country, as oil revenues
largely went back to foreign, mainly US oil companies or
into the ruling elite's private bank accounts;
corruption has been, and is, extensive. The sums that
have gone down to the majority of the population are
vanishingly small and the income from the oil has not
led to any significant improvements for the ordinary
citizen. Most people live in poverty and support
themselves through cultivation for self-catering or
black jobs of various kinds.
For their own use, the residents grow jams, sweet
potatoes, cassava and bananas. On the fertile island of
Bioko, the Spaniards grew cocoa on large plantations,
but production has fallen sharply since independence in
1968. One reason is the uncertainty about who owns the
land. A collaboration was initiated in the 2010s with
the large cocoa producer Ghana to modernize the
industry, which still employs many people in the
population. The most important sales crop on the
mainland is coffee. In 1995, almost half of the
country's exports accounted for timber, coffee and
cocoa. Twenty years later, agriculture's share of
exports was less than one percent, while oil and natural
gas accounted for 99 percent.
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Abbreviationfinder.org: Check this abbreviation website to find three letter ISO codes for all countries in the world, including GNQ which represents the country of Equatorial Guinea.
Infrastructure investments
The state's official oil revenues have so far mainly
been focused on urban construction projects and measures
to improve the country's infrastructure such as roads,
ports and airports and more. This has led to an upswing
for the construction industry but has not resulted in as
many jobs for the indigenous population, as the often
foreign (Chinese, North African and more) companies
hired for construction employ staff from their home
country.
The high rate of growth in the economy was dampened
in 2013, when the world market price of oil began to
fall to finally more than halved, while at the same time
the country was forced to reduce its oil production as
the largest oil fields reached their peak. In addition,
the ongoing crisis in the world economy contributed to
reduced demand for oil and natural gas and also gas
production shrank, despite a number of investments (see
Natural Resources and Energy). As the economy was so
dependent on the oil and gas sector, the result was that
Equatorial Guinea was in a recession. In 2014, growth
was projected to be negative (minus 2.1 percent) and the
African Development Bank (AfDB) predicted an even larger
decline of 8.7 percent. In order to be able to finance
the remainder of the infrastructure investments
initiated in accordance with the 2008 development plan
(see below), it is necessary to utilize the bank
reserves that have been allocated and are now at risk of
being drained.
Attempts are being made to escape the great
dependence of the oil and gas sector in the economy. In
2014, two well-attended symposiums were held in Malabo
to draw foreign investment into five “new” sectors:
agriculture and livestock, fisheries, mining and
petrochemicals, tourism and financial services.
Already in 2008, however, a national plan for
economic and social development, Plan Nacional de
Desarrollo Económico y Social (PNDES), was adopted,
which aimed to eradicate poverty by 2020 in a number of
areas. The African Development Bank (AfDB) contributed a
loan of € 2.9 million, which, in addition to poverty
reduction, would primarily go to developing health care,
fighting corruption and improving the transparency of
government finances. However, the majority of the plan
would be financed with oil and gas revenues and in a
first phase (2008–2012) went mainly to various
infrastructure projects: roads, ports, airports, as well
as to the development and construction of cities
(including the new capital Oyala).
aid Country
Despite oil revenues, Equatorial Guinea is still a
country of development, albeit not to the same extent as
before; several former donors refer to the (long) strong
growth of the country's gross domestic product, GDP. But
international lending institutions such as the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank
have also largely withdrawn all assistance to Equatorial
Guinea because of corruption and mismanagement in the
country, and the United States because Equatorial Guinea
does nothing about the problem of human trafficking.
Spain is the largest contributor, followed by France,
although French aid has fallen sharply in the 2000s.
AfDB has also provided support in a number of areas.
China has provided Equatorial Guinea with aid money in
exchange for shares in the oil industry and the EU as
well as Cuba has provided targeted support to health and
education in particular.
Through the oil money, Equatorial Guinea has been
able to pay off its relatively low external debt (but
for example Spain and China have also made large debt
write-offs). In recent years, the debt has been between
5 and 10 percent of GDP.
FACTS - FINANCE
GDP per person
US $ 10,174 (2018)
Total GDP
US $ 13,317 million (2018)
GDP growth
-2.9 percent (2018)
Agriculture's share of GDP
2.3 percent (2018)
Manufacturing industry's share of GDP
25.4 percent (2018)
The service sector's share of GDP
40.5 percent (2018)
Inflation
0.9 percent (2019)
Government debt's share of GDP
43.3 percent (2018)
Currency
Central African Franc
Merchandise exports
US $ 175 million (1996)
Imports
US $ 292 million (1996)
Current account
- US $ 344 million (1996)
Commodity trade's share of GDP
62 percent (2018)
Main export goods
oil, oil products, timber
Largest trading partner
USA, China, France, Japan, Spain
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