ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar, Thursday, launched ‘The Economic Survey of Pakistan’ for the outgoing fiscal year (2016-17). Economic Survey is the pre-budget document highlighting the overall performance of economy during the outgoing fiscal year.
The survey claimed that despite several internal and external challenges, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth recorded decade’s highest at 5.3% during the fiscal year 2016-17.
The overall size of Pakistan’s economy had crossed the threshold of $300 billion during the current year. While the GDP growth rate target for the upcoming year (2017-18) has been fixed at 6% and target would not only be achieved but also exceeded. During the outgoing year (2016-17), the agriculture sector posted a growth of 3.5%, which was a positive sign and attributed the growth to incentive package announced in the last budget to the farmers
“The growth rate was just 3%t in 2013, which has now risen to 5.3% and this growth is also being acknowledged at the world level,” Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar said while launching Pakistan Economic Survey for the outgoing fiscal year (2016-17) here. He said that the overall size of Pakistan’s economy had crossed the threshold of $300 billion during the current year. The minister said that policy rate had been reduced to 5.75%, which was at the lowest level in last 45 years
An overview records that the when the present government came into power in 2013 it particularly focused on the revival of the economy and within a short period of time it achieved considerable gains in restoring economic stability.
After taking measures to restore macroeconomic stability, the government focused on higher GDP growth that brings better living conditions to the people through higher increases in per capita incomes, more job opportunities etc.
Since 2013-14, the economy has witnessed a smooth upward trend in growth rate. Real GDP growth was above four percent in 2013-14 and has smoothly increased during the last four years to reach 5.28 percent in 2016-17, which is the highest in 10 years.
It is widely acknowledged that Pakistan has immense economic potential. According to a report published by Price Water House Coopers in 2017, Pakistan is projected to become the world’s 20th largest economy by 2030 and 16th largest by 2050. Several other reputed international publications such as Bloomberg, Economist etc, have also acknowledged the impressive economic gains of Pakistan in the last four years.
The accommodative monetary policy stance, increase in development spending, substantial growth in private sector credit, inspired activities in the power sector, friendly and progrowth policies for real sector growth, such as relief measures and in particular for the agriculture sector, were instrumental in achieving this impressive growth performance.
The outgoing fiscal year has witnessed an impressive growth in agriculture output and in the services sector. The agriculture sector met its growth target of 3.5 percent, helped by government supportive policies and by increased agriculture credit disbursements. During 2015-16, the agriculture credit disbursement was close to Rs 600 billion while during 2016-17, the target was raised to Rs 700 billion. During July-March 2016-17, the disbursement was observed to be 23 percent higher as compared to the previous year. These developments, along with the Prime Minister’s Agriculture Kissan Package together with other relief measures have started yielding positive results.
The large-scale manufacturing output is primarily based on Quantum Index Manufacturing (QIM) data, which show an increase by 5.06 percent from July 2016 to March 2017. Major contributors to this growth are sugar (29.33 percent), cement (7.19 percent), tractors (72.9 percent), trucks (39.31 percent) and buses (19.71 percent). High growth of sugar is based on production of 73.9 Million Tons of Sugarcane as compared to 65.5 million tons last year, which represents an increase by 12.4 percent.
Large Scale Manufacturing growth has picked up momentum and posted a strong 10.5 percent growth in the month of March 2017 compared to 7.6 percent in March 2016. The YoY growth augurs well for further improvement in growth during the period under review.
