The government is targeting 6.8 percent GDP growth for the next fiscal year while the growth rate envisaged for the current fiscal was at 6.4 percent, according to the Annual Plan.
The agriculture sector is targeted to grow at 2.7 percent, industry at 13.1 percent and services at 5.7 percent during 2004-05, according to the Annual Plan presented to the Annual Plan Co-ordination Committee that met here on Saturday.
The agriculture target production is based on existing position of major and minor crops as well as other sub-sectors like livestock, fishery and forestry.
The output of major crops is targeted to grow by 3 percent as compared to achievement of 2.8 percent in 2003-04. The target of cotton production has been set at 10.7 million bales for next fiscal as compared to the output of 10.05 million bales in 2003-04.
The wheat production is targeted at 20.8 million tons against the achieved level of 19.8 million tons during 2003-04. Sugarcane target production is estimated to be 50.9 million tons against 53.4 million tons achieved during 2003-04.
Rice and maize production are targeted at 5.1 million tons and 2.2 million tons against achievement of 4.8 million tons and 1.8 million tons respectively in 2003-04.
For the next fiscal, the manufacturing sector is targeted to grow by 14.9 percent, believed to consolidate the recovery process maintained during the past two years.
According to the document, the higher growth rate of the manufacturing sector is premised on the large scale manufacturing sector's growth of 19 percent, small and household manufacturing sector of 7.6 percent and slaughtering growth of 3 percent.
Automobiles, petroleum products, chemicals, cement, cotton yarn and cloth, textiles made-ups, engineering goods air conditioners, motor tyres, fertilisers and electronic items would be the main growing industries.
The investment is targeted at Rs 1162.4 billion during 2004-05 and would be higher than the investment of Rs 986.9 billion estimated for 2003-04. Total investment is to reach a level of 19.3 percent against 18.1 percent achieved in 2003-04.
It is expected that 70.4 percent of fixed investment will be covered by the private sector and remaining 29.6 percent from public sector. Public and private sector investments are targeted to be at 5.2 percent and 12.3 percent respectively during the next fiscal.
On trade account, the government expects that next fiscal may experience a deterioration in the trade balance due to high growth of imports than growth of exports.
Exports are projected to grow by 8 percent from $ 12,158 million in 2003-04 to $ 13,130 million during next fiscal. The imports are forecast to increase by 12 percent from $ 12,913 million in the outgoing fiscal to $ 14,462 million in 2004-05.
For 2004-05, remittances have been projected at $ 3,300 million against $ 3,700 million during 2003-04.
Gross disbursement of official development assistance is expected to increase to $ 1,784 million in 2004-05 as compared to $ 1,354 million during the current fiscal.
Monetary stocks up to end June 2004, are estimated at Rs 2,308.7 billion. Monetary expansion during this fiscal was targeted at Rs 2,30.0 billion and up to April 10, 2004, monetary expansion has been at Rs 273.56 billion.
During 2004-05, the monetary expansion is expected to increase by around 10.8 percent.
The rate of inflation is likely to be contained at the targeted level of 4 percent during 2003-04. Rate of inflation during 2004-05 is estimated to be around 4.5 percent.
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