5.1 percent growth remains elusive

The government has flatly failed to achieve 5.1 percent growth target projected for the current fiscal year as gross domestic products (GDP) remained 4.2 percent, according to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. A meeting of National Accounts Committee (NAC), which was chaired by Secretary Statistics Division, reviewed the performance of different sectors and on the basis of their performance projected growth target for the entire fiscal year. The performance of all the sectors remains much below the projected targets for the current fiscal year and growth by some sector was even lower compared to previous year. The government has projected a growth of 3.3 percent in agriculture sector for the current fiscal year but the latest data shows that growth in agriculture sector would remain at 2.88 percent.
The performance of industrial sector was very dismal during the current fiscal year as growth in this sector would remain 3.62 percent against 6.8 percent projected in budget for the current fiscal year. Growth in manufacturing sector was targeted at 6.9 percent in the current fiscal year but nine months data shows it would remain at 3.7 percent and large scale manufacturing would grow by 2.38 percent against the target of 7 percent and 5.3 percent growth achieved in the previous fiscal year.
The performance of services sector was also below the target with 4.95 per cent growth against the projected target of 5.2 percent. Among services sector''s sub sectors, growth in wholesale and retail trade sector stood at 3.38, transport and communication 4.21 percent, finance & insurance 6.18 percent, housing services (OD) 4 percent, general government services 9.44 and other services 5.94 percent. Among sub-sectors of agriculture sector, crops recorded a growth of 1 percent. Growth in important crops was expected at 0.28 percent, other crops 1.09 percent, cotton ginning and miscellaneous 7.38 percent, livestock 4.12 percent forestry 3.15 and fishing 5.75 percent.
In industrial sector, growth in mining and quarrying was estimated 3.84 percent against the target of 6.5 percent, small scale manufacturing 8.24 percent against the target of 8.4 percent, electricity generation and distribution as well as gas distribution 1.94 percent against 5.5 percent target government had fixed in the budget. Growth by commodity producing sector is estimated at 3.24 percent by the National Accounts Committee against the budgetary target of 5 percent. The NAC also revised previous year''s growth target to 4.03 percent from 4.1 percent.