Presidential election for which various forces fought was held in September 1999. Cotton, coffer, wood and diamond are the main supporter of the economy. Industry is rather underdeveloped and grows at a slow pace. Besides mining, it has only primary products processing, a bit of agricultural products processing, beverage and textile. Main crops are cotton, tobacco, cassava, sweet potato, maize, banana and millet.
Main minerals are diamond, gold, uranium, steel, limestone, copper and manganese.
Now only diamond and gold are mined. Central Africa is having oil that is distributed among border area between Central Africa and Sudan, but still not extracted. The area for forest in the country is 34,000 square kilometers, 2.7 square kilometers of which can be tapped. Central Africa is noted for precious tropical wood and 60 kinds of trees are of commercial value for tapping. But due to poor infrastructure, such as transportation, very less of them have been chopped down.