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In a late-night meeting on Wednesday, the National Accounts Committee (NAC) finalized provisional figures for Pakistan’s economy, claiming a growth rate of 0.29%–significantly less than the 5% target set for the ongoing fiscal year in the federal budget.
Held at the Planning Commission, the NAC met under the chair of Planning Secretary Syed Zafar Ali Shah and approved provisional figures ahead of the release of the Economic Survey and next year’s budget, expected in June. Speaking with media after the meeting, Planning Commission’s Chief Economist Nadeem Javaid claimed the growth target could not be achieved because of the impact of last year’s floods, political instability, the global recession and the Ukraine war. However, he added, resilience shown by various economic sectors yield a slight positive growth. Economists have warned that the minimal growth rate, lower than the country’s population growth rate, would likely boost poverty and unemployment.
Earlier, the State Bank of Pakistan had revised down the country’s growth target to 2 percent against the budgeted estimate of 5 percent. The 0.29% is relatively closer to the 0.5% projected by the International Monetary Fund and the 0.4% estimated by the World Bank.
According to the NAC, the 0.29% growth rate has been achieved through a 1.55% growth in the agriculture sector. However, it added, the industrial sector had witnessed negative growth of -2.94%, while the services sector had shown 0.86% growth.
The NAC also revised upwards the GDP growth of 2021-22 to 6.1%. Further, it said large-scale manufacturing had shown contraction of -7.98%, against last year’s growth of 11.9%; construction had contracted by -5.53% against 1.9% growth last year; livestock had shown a growth of 3.78%; while cotton ginning had shown a decline of -23%. It also gave provisional growth rates of 10.44% for the education sector; 8.49% for human health and social work-related activities; 6.03% for the electricity generation and gas distribution sector; and 4.46% growth for wholesale and retail trade.