Craft activities include making crude wooden furniture, textiles, grinding stones, candles, and other items for wear or household use. Manufacturing has grown rapidly since 1960, when the markets of other Central American nations were opened to the exports of Guatemala. Although minerals are present in the central mountain ranges of Guatemala, the mining of lead, zinc, or silver has never been significant. Antimony, copper, nickel, and tungsten are also mined. Petroleum fields came into production in the Peten in 1978.
Output remains small, and petroleum is a major import.
Until 1950 the value of coffee and bananas made up 90 percent of Guatemalan exports. Thereafter rapid increases in the production and export of cotton, sugar, beef, and manufactured products led to a decrease in the reliance on coffee and bananas, whose share has dropped to a third of all exports. Imports of machinery, transportation equipment, and construction materials come primarily from the United States, other Central American nations, Western Europe, and Japan. Most of the petroleum comes from Venezuela, some by way of refineries in the Netherlands Antilles. During the 1970s Guatemala made significant economic progress.