KARACHI: The central bank, in its annual report, has pointed out that the government has failed to increase investment opportunities in the country.
In Annual Plan for fiscal year 2014-15, the State Bank of Pakistan noted that no improvement was witnessed in energy sector, investment and political stability. However, the SBP in its third quarterly report lauded the government for taking measures to boost economy.
The report disclosed that services sector performed better than last year during the first nine months, but it was all owing to government’s involvement, and not to private sector.
“Despite lower growth in agriculture and industry, services managed to grow by 5 per cent in the fiscal year 2015, which was higher than 4.4pc of last year. The impetus came from general government services, reflecting an increase in salaries and pensions of government employees,” said the SBP.
Another push was a healthy growth in finance and insurance, primarily driven by financial institutions investment in government securities, said the report.
Commercial banks invested Rs1.2 trillion in government papers in the first nine months which was an all-time high. Total investment by the end of March 2015 stood at Rs5.3tr. This huge investment by financial services sector in government papers boosted services growth.
