File photo
The interim government on Tuesday issued the GDP growth rate of the ongoing fiscal year, while also revising the GDP rates for the previous two fiscal years, fulfilling a requirement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to release economic performance statistics on a quarterly basis.
Utilizing the base year of 2015-16, a meeting of the National Accounts Committee (NAC) approved GDP growth rate of 2.13% for the first quarter (July-September) of this fiscal year, against -2.7% in the same period last year. This was primarily attributed to 5.06% growth in agriculture; 2.48% in industry; and 0.82% in services.
Additionally, it said the GDP had contracted by 0.17% in fiscal year 2022-23 under the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM)-led government, rather than the 0.29% growth provisionally estimated in May.
The revised GDP growth rate for the last fiscal year was attributed by the NAC to a contraction in the growth of the industrial and services sectors. It said agriculture had improved from the provisional 1.55% to 2.25%, primarily due to boosts in the production of wheat and maize. For the industrial sector, it said, its growth had declined from -2.94 to -3.76%, primarily due to decreases in large-scale manufacturing (-7.98 to -9.87%) and construction (-5.53 to -9.16%).
The services sector, per the NAC, declined from the provisional 0.86% to 0.07%, with significant reductions witnessed in information and communication (6.93 to -2.55%); and finance and insurance (-3.82 to -8.09%).
The NAC also revised upwards the GDP growth in the final year of the PTI government, 2021-22, from 6.1 to 6.17%. This was attributed to improvements in agriculture sector growth (4.27% to 4.28%); industrial activities (6.83 to 6.95%); and services (6.59 to 6.66%).
As part of its commitment to the IMF, the NAC meeting approved an industry-wise methodology of compiling the quarterly GDP as well as a series of quarterly growth rates of GDP for various industries from the first quarter of 2016-17 to the first quarter 2023 by taking 2015-16 as the base year.