Economy in Haiti

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By most economic measures, Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas. It had a nominal GDP of 7.018 billion USD in 2009, with a GDP per capita (PPP US$) of 1,255.^[1]
It is an impoverished country, one of the world's poorest and least developed. Comparative social and economic indicators show Haiti falling behind other low-income developing countries (particularly in the hemisphere) since the 1980s. Haiti now ranks 149th of 182 countries in the United Nations Human Development Index (2006). About 80% of the population were estimated to be living in poverty in 2003.^[1] Most Haitians live on $2 or less per day.^[76] Haiti has 50% illiteracy,^[77] and over 80% of college graduates from Haiti have emigrated, mostly to the United States.^[78] Cité Soleil is considered one of the worst slums in the Americas,^[79] most of its 500,000 residents live in extreme poverty.^[59] Poverty has forced at least 225,000 Haitian children to work as restavecs (unpaid household servants); the United Nations considers this to be a modern-day form of slavery.^[80]
About 66% of all Haitians work in the agricultural sector, which consists mainly of small-scale subsistence farming,^[1] but this activity makes up only 30% of the GDP. The country has experienced little formal job-creation over the past decade, although the informal economy is growing. Mangoes and coffee are two of Haiti's most important exports.^[1]
Mining and economic geology: Natural resources of Haiti include bauxite, copper, calcium carbonate, gold, marble and hydropower. Haiti contains relatively small amounts of gold, silver, antimony, tin, lignite, sulphur, coal, nickel, gypsum, limestone, manganese, marble, iron, tungsten, salt, clay, and various building stones. Gold and copper are found in small quantities in the north of the country. The government announced the discovery of new gold deposits in the northern peninsula in 1985, but long-standing plans for gold production proceeded slowly. Copper also was mined, beginning in the 1960s, but production of the ore was sporadic. There are bauxite (aluminum ore) deposits on the southern peninsula, but large scale mining there was discontinued in 1983. The country’s only bauxite mine, the Miragoâne mine in the southern peninsula, produced an average of 500,000 tons of bauxite a year in the early 1980s; however, in 1982 the declining metal content of the ore, high production costs, and the oversupplied international bauxite market forced the mine to close. Bauxite had at one time been the country’s second leading export. Haiti apparently has no hydrocarbon resources on land or in the Gulf of Gonâve and is therefore heavily dependent on energy imports (petroleum and petroleum products).

Note: Whatever sad it may sound to you, it is never too late to change our statu quo. Haiti used to be called one of the most prosperous country in the world. But today we see and hear the opposite. Let's start the change now. Do not wait. Yes, WE CAN!


Credit to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti