LAHORE: Agriculture share in GDP has dropped to 21 per cent from 53 per cent in 1950 and 31 per cent in 1980.
Patron Islamabad Chamber of Small Traders Shahid Rasheed Butt revealed this in a statement, adding that achievement of satisfactory growth rate is linked to the promotion of agricultural sector which has been ignored by almost all the government.
Butt said that dwindling share of agriculture which will go down with the collapse of cotton crop has stunned the economic growth. He said that GDP improvement without focusing on agriculture is a pipe dream and that feeding population exploding by 2pc per annum require urgent steps.
The veteran business leader said that 5.5 percent growth rate target for the current year is unattainable at best while government will soon have to revise it down like the targets of investment, exports and revenue.
Government has improved growth rate, forex reserves while workers remittances have been increased by six percent while it has failed to widen tax base and reform public sector enterprises. He expressed concern over increasing dependence over loans and feared that country would not be able to service debt in five years and it will have to dance on the tunes of west to survive.
