Pakistan’s GDP grows 0.92% in July-Sept, 2.5% in FY24

Pakistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) posted a growth of 0.92% in the first quarter (July-September) of fiscal year 2024-25, estimates released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Monday showed.

“The growth in agriculture, industry and services stands at 1.15%, -1.03% and 1.43% respectively,” read a press release issued by the PBS after the National Accounts Committee (NAC) meeting.

Further, the committee approved the updated growth of GDP during FY 2023-24 at 2.50% as compared to 2.52% estimated previously.

“Despite improvement in important crops from 17.02% to 17.12%, the updated growth in agriculture has slightly moved down to 6.18% from 6.36% mainly due to downward revision in forestry from 3.05% to -0.89% mainly as a result of lower production of timber,” NAC noted.

NAC shared that during Q1, crops have contracted by 5.93%. “The contraction of 11.19% in important crops is due to a reduction in the production of cotton (-29.6%), maize (-15.6%), rice (-1.2%), and sugarcane (- 2.2%).

Meanwhile, the rate of contraction in industry has slowed down from 4.43% in 2023-24Q1 to 1.03% in 2024-25Q1.

During Q1, the service sector grew by 1.43% as compared to 2.16% in Q1 last year due to positive contribution in wholesale & retail trade (0.51%), accommodation and food services (4.58%), information and communication (5.09%), real estate activities (4.22%), education (2.03%), human health & social work activities (5.60%) and other private services (3.30%).

Size of economy

As per NAC’s latest figures, the national accounts aggregates for FY2023-24, the overall size of the economy stands at Rs105.6 trillion i.e. $373.3 billion.

Further, per capita income in Rupees is 472,263/- i.e. $1,669.

“However, the series of per capita income from 2016-17 onwards will be revised after the receipt of backward and forward projections of population from the sources based on 2023- Population Census,” read the statement.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected the GDP growth rate for Pakistan at 3.2% for fiscal year 2025 against 2.4% in fiscal year 2024.

Recently, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) also revised upwards its forecast for Pakistan’s GDP growth in fiscal year 2025 to 3%, up from 2.8%.