The private sector's main areas of activity are agriculture and trading, with most private industrial investment predating 1980.
Industry mainly processes agricultural items.
Sluggish economic performance over the past decade, attributable largely to declining annual rainfall, has reduced levels of per capita income and consumption. A large foreign debt and huge arrearages continue to cause difficulties. In 1990 the International Monetary Fund took the unusual step of declaring Sudan noncooperative because of its nonpayment of arrearages to the Fund. Despite subsequent government efforts to implement reforms urged by the IMF and the World Bank, the economy remained stagnant in FY91 as entrepreneurs lack the incentive to take economic risks. Growth in 1992 was featured by the recovery of agricultural production in northern Sudan after two years of drought.