Haroon dares Opposition on economic performance

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Revenue/Federal Minister Senator Haroon Akhtar Khan has hit out at the Opposition for glossing over five-year achievements of the government and painting a bleak picture of the economy requiring imposition of an "economic emergency".
"Surely, the suggestion of an economic emergency would have made sense in 2013 when the economy was in shambles, with almost all economic indicators showing a bleak situation, but for the Opposition to insinuate and belittle our economic achievements of the last five years shows their inherent bias and poor understanding of the economy," he said in a statement in response to what he called "unjust" and "unwarranted" criticism by the Opposition of the government''s economic performance over the last five years.
Haroon Akhtar Khan reminded the Opposition that five years ago in 2013, GDP growth was merely 3.68 per cent while it was 5.79 per cent now. Similar growth trends were visible in the industry which grew from 0.75 per cent in 2013 to 5.80 in 2018; in agriculture which grew from 2.68 per cent in 2013 to 3.81 per cent; and in Services sector which had grown from 5.13 per cent in 2013 to 6.43 per cent in 2018.
He also alluded to an impressive growth recorded in the industrial sector during the last five years with large-scale manufacturing leading the way with 2.98 per cent growth in 2013 to 6.24 in 2018 while even greater growth had been recorded in the construction sector which had risen from 1.08 per cent in 2013 to 9.13 per cent in 2018.
The minister drew attention of the Opposition towards a massive increase in the agriculture credit given to farmers during the last five years, saying while a puny amount of Rs 196.12 billion was loaned to framers in 2013, the figure had reached Rs 569.97 billion in 2018 while the target for financial year 2018 was Rs 1,001 billion. "Similar growth trends can be seen for the last five years in the wheat crop which grew from 24.21 million tonnes in 2013 to 25.49 million tonnes in 2018; rice which grew from 5.54 to 7.44 million tonnes; maize which improved from 4.22 to 5.70 million tonnes; sugarcane which rose from 63.75 to 81.10 million; and whole sale & retail trade which went up from 3.53 WRT to 7.51 WRT."
Haroon also challenged the Opposition on the inflation front where in the last five years, the CPI had come down from 7.98 in July-March 2013 to merely 3.78 per cent in July-March 2018, with the core inflation also going down from 10.05 per cent to 5.45 per cent. "Similarly, our foreign exchange reserves rose from $ 11.85 billion in April 2013 to $16.91 billion in April 2018 while per capita income had also increased from $ 1,333 in June 2013 to $1,640 in April 2018," he added. He also drew the attention of the Opposition towards a 160 per cent hike in the allocations for the BISP which received Rs 121 billion in 2017-18 as against Rs 46.5 in 2012-13. -PR