14 - Trade In the past ten years, trade has suffered seriously from the repercussions of the socio-political problems in the country. - Transport Concerning transport, during 2002, development in this sector was characterized by a revival of river transport activities, and a marked increase in road cargo, whilst air cargo continued the decline it had started in the past few years due to its prohibitive costs and the low levels of purchasing power, as well as the inertia of national economic activity. - Transit Activities in this sector were marked by relative stability in relation to the various militaro-political crises experienced by the country. - Telecomunications The telecommunications sector boasts four Companies, namely, SOCATEL which takes care of the national entry and exit communications network, TELECEL, A. CELL and NATION LINK which cover the mobile telephone system, in Bangui in particular. The combination of the above mentioned three sectors highlights the Central African Republic development context which is marked by extreme poverty and bad governance. - Extreme poverty The militaro-political crises which perturbed the country throughout 1996 and early in the 3rd millennium are largely responsible for the pauperization of a major segment of the population and its increased vulnerability. According to the 2003 World Human Development Report the country is classed as the 168th among 173 countries. In 2004, it was 169th among the 177 pays observed in the area of human development with Human Development Indicators (HDIs) of 0.363 in 2001 and 0.361 in 2002, and as having the lowest social indicators in the world. More than 66.6% of the 3,895,139 Central Africans live on less than one US dollar per day. Life expectancy at birth which was 49 years for a Central African at the end of the 80s, was 40.4 years in 2001 and 39.8 years in 2002. Certainly, the mortality rate of children of less than 5 years has dropped from 248 to 180 per thousand, but the CAR still remains the country where the largest number of women die during delivery (1100 women per 100,000 live births). The poverty level increased from 62% in 1992 to 75% in 2003. This situation is due to the continued downward trend of the national revenue. In effect, GDP per capita dropped from 349 $US in 1995 to 255 $US in 2001. Among the categories of the population most affected by poverty figure women,