Pakistan’s economy ‘on path to recovery’ as world battles COVID

Pakistan’s planning minister Asad Umar has said that the country’s economy is on ‘path to recovery’ as compared to other world economies that are struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a tweet post, Umar stated: “As the world struggles with Covid-19, Pakistan economy on path to recovery... Strong export growth, positive large scale manufacturing growth, revenues up.”

He added that “Big electricity price cut for industry will further accelerate industrial growth particularly for SME's.”

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday announced Industrial Support Package (ISP) that offers additional consumption of electricity to small and medium industries at 50 percent less rates. The package became effective from Nov 1, 2020.

All the industries, big and small, would pay 25 percent less on consumption of additional electricity by them over the next three years, said the prime minister during a media briefing along with his economic team after a cabinet meeting that approved the package.

For instance, if an SME was buying at Rs16 per unit, would pay Rs8 per unit on consumption of additional electricity after November 1, 2020. This would continue till June 30, the prime minister added.

Whereas, on the other hand Pakistan’s exports have shown negative growth of 0.1 percent during first four months of current fiscal year as compared to the corresponding period of 2019-20.

As per the provisional trade data for the month of October 2020, the exports have shown an increase of 2.1% and stood at $ 2. 066 billion as compared to $2. 024 billion in October 2019.

On the import side, during the same period, there has been a contraction of 10.3% and imports have decreased from $ 4.074 billion to $ 3.653 billion in October 2020. The trade deficit shrank by -22.6% in October 2020 to $-1.587 billion, showing an improvement of $ 463 million over October 2019.