Economic indicators stay positive, LSM, exports witness growth

ISLAMABAD: Despite challenges, the performance of various sectors of economy showed impressive growth as depicted by different economic growth indicators.

During the first five months of the current fiscal year, the exports have witnessed a growth of 10.49 percent over the corresponding period of Fiscal year 2016-17, while during the month of November, the exports increased by 12.35 percent compared to the exports of November 2016, as reported by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

The Large Scale Manufacturing Industries (LSMI) of the country witnessed an impressive growth of 9.64 percent during the first four months of the current fiscal year compared to the corresponding period of last year.

The highest growth of 5.90 percent was witnessed in the indices monitored by Ministry of Industries, followed by 2.69 percent growth in the products monitored by Provincial Bureaus of Statistics (PBOS) and 1.06 growth in the indices of Oil Companies Advisory Committee (OCAC).

On year-to-year basis, the industrial growth increased by 8.77 percent during October 2017 as compared to same month of last year.

The revenue collection during the first half of the current fiscal year (2017-18) witnessed an increase of 17.5 percent as compared to the corresponding period of last year.

The revenue collection by FBR during July-December (2017-18) was recorded at over Rs1722 billion as against Rs1466 billion collected during the same period of the previous fiscal year, showing an increase of 17.5 percent, indicating that FBR was on track to achieve annual collection target of Rs 4013 billion.

Moreover, the number of return filers have also increased up to1,158, 380,showing an increase of 21.5% compared to the corresponding period of last year.

Meanwhile, the total foreign reserves stand $20.383 billion including $14.332 billion held by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and remaining by commercial banks.   The inflation continues to remain in single digit as the Consumer Price Index (CPI) during December 2017 witnessed an increase of 4.57 per cent as compared to the same month of previous year.

On month-on-month basis, the inflation witnessed negative growth of 0.10 per cent in December 2017 as compared to November 2017. The CPI inflation during July-December (2017-18) increased 3.75 percent as compared to the first half of the fiscal year 2016-17.

The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) during the month increased by 0.36 percent while the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) witnessed growth of 0.67 percent, according to PBS data.