Names: conventional long form: Commonwealth of The Bahamas conventional short form: The Bahamas

Capital City: Nassau

Population: 303,770 note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2006 est.)

GDP Per Capita: $21,300 (2006 est.)

Currency: Bahamian dollar (BSD)

Languages: English (official), Creole (among Haitian immigrants)

Total Area: total: 13,940 sq km land: 10,070 sq km water: 3,870 sq km slightly smaller than Connecticut

Region: North America

Industries: tourism, banking, cement, oil transshipment, salt, rum, aragonite, pharmaceuticals, spiral-welded steel pipe

Agriculture: citrus, vegetables; poultry

Resources: salt, aragonite, timber, arable land

Labor Force: 176,300 (2004)
agriculture 5%, industry 5%, tourism 50%, other services 5% (2005 est.)

Exports: $469.3 million (2004 est.)
mineral products and salt, animal products, rum, chemicals, fruit and vegetables

Imports: $1.82 billion (2004 est.)
machinery and transport equipment, manufactures, chemicals, mineral fuels; food and live animals

Overview: The Bahamas is a stable, developing nation with an economy heavily dependent on tourism and offshore banking. Tourism together with tourism-driven construction and manufacturing accounts for approximately 60% of GDP and directly or indirectly employs half of the archipelago's labor force. Steady growth in tourism receipts and a boom in construction of new hotels, resorts, and residences had led to solid GDP growth in recent years, but the slowdown in the US economy and the attacks of 11 September 2001 held back growth in these sectors in 2001-03. The current government has presided over a period of economic recovery and an upturn in large-scale private sector investments in tourism. Financial services constitute the second-most important sector of the Bahamian economy, accounting for about 15% of GDP. However, since December 2000, when the government enacted new regulations on the financial sector, many international businesses have left The Bahamas. Manufacturing and agriculture together contribute approximately a tenth of GDP and show little growth, despite government incentives aimed at those sectors. Overall growth prospects in the short run rest heavily on the fortunes of the tourism sector, which depends on growth in the US, the source of more than 80% of the visitors.

_{CIA World Book}

In 2007 Missouri exported $3,051,675 in goods to Bahamas, The. This ranks Bahamas, The 69^th among the 223 international buyers of Missouri goods. Missouri exports to Bahamas, The increased from the previous year by $592,765 a change of 24.11%. State exports to Bahamas, The have increased over the last 5 years by $1,023,381 a change of 50.46%. Missouri exports account for .02%. of all 2007 US exports to Bahamas, The.