ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue has published its Year Book for the year 2012-13 which contains extensive account of financial constraints, economic mismanagement and less than capacity electricity generation that have hampered the economy.
The year book envisages various shocks which have vastly affected the economic and social environment for the past few years.
The year book 2012-13 states that the economy, over the last five years, grew at an average rate of 2.9 per cent per annum. The GDP growth during FY2012-13 has been 3.6 percent against the targeted 4.3 percent. The performance by the important sectors of economy like agriculture, manufacturing and services remained below par capacity. The year book also points out some positive aspects of the economy including comparatively lower trade deficit, strong remittances and above 33 percent decline in inflation rates i.e. reduced from 11.0 percent in 2011-12 to 7.4 percent in FY2012-13.
Some prudent measures have been taken for improvement of economy (most important step was the settlement of circular debt to the tune of Rs480 billion which paved the way of 1700 megawatts additional electricity generation). Similarly, easy monetary policy with low interest rate during the FY2012-13 increased the cheap credit borrowing by the corporate sector. Resultantly, improved performance by the large scale-manufacturing sector became possible and observed.
Similarly, the GSP Plus status granted by the EU has created much wanted space for the economy. Duty free access to Pakistan’s exports to the bloc of 27 member countries of EU has offered much attention for the domestic and Chinese investors.
Similarly, the FBR revenue target for FY2012-13 was fixed at Rs2,381 billion with an envisaged growth of 26.5% over last year’s collection of Rs1,883 billion. Keeping in view the broad based challenges faced by the economy, the revenue target was revised downward to Rs2,007 billion and expected a growth of 6.6%. Majority of the important targets of different sectors of economy were missed during the fiscal year.
