Islamabad: Torrential rains, ongoing war against terrorism and international economic crisis pulled backed the gross domestic product (GDP) to 3.7 percent against the growth target of 4.2 percent during outgoing financial year, said Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafiz Sheikh on Thursday.
Unveiling the Economic Survey, the minister said that there were improvement in Consumer Price Index (CPI), Sensitive Price Index (SPI) and Wholesale Price Index (WPI), indicating decrease in inflation. He said there were need to further improve the three basic indexes of inflation.
He said there was record increase of 25 percent in tax collection. Sheikh said the government didn’t want people to suffer due to inflation.
He said that the direct foreign investment remained 666.8 million dollars while remittance saw increase of 20 percent.
The government remained focused on maintaining macroeconomic
stability, growth, mobilizing domestic resources and increasing
exports, balanced regional development and providing safety nets for
the vulnerable groups.
Despite numerous challenges, the economy performed better in 2011-12
than many developed and developing economies. These included sharp
increase in fuel and commodity prices, recessionary trend globally and
weak inflows.
Domestically, economy was struck by heavy rains in Sindh and parts of
Balochistan costing $ 3.7 billion. Notwithstanding these challenges,
the Gross Domestic Product growth this year is estimated at 3.7
percent as compared to 3.0 percent last year.
In comparison, the global recovery is threatened by intensifying
strains in the euro area and fragilities elsewhere. International
Monetary Fund has maintained its growth forecast of 2.1 percent for
United States in the year 2012, negative 0.3 percent for Euro area,
0.8 percent for United Kingdom, 5.7 percent for Emerging and
Developing Economies after factoring China (8.2 percent) and India
(6.9 percent) and 2.0 percent for
Japan.
Despite global slowdown, Pakistan has managed to maintain its exports
during July-April 2012 to last year’s level which saw a phenomenal
growth.
The remittances remained buoyant and estimated at close to $ 13
billion, an increase of 16 percent. Recessionary trend globally have,
however, impacted capital flows to Pakistan.
The Current account balance was affected due to sharp increase in oil
prices and import of 1.2 million metric tons of fertilizer. The tax
measures enforced by the Government in
April 2011 has yielded dividend. July-April 2012 growth in FBR tax
revenues demonstrated a growth of 24 percent with Rs. 1,445 billion as
compared to 1,250 billion last year.
Efforts are underway to reach the ambitious target of 1952 billion.
Non-tax receipts have been less due to non disbursement of anticipated
coalition support funds and delaying the expected auction of 3 G
license to a later part of summer.
The economy is now showing signs of modest recovery. GDP growth for
2011-12 has been estimated 3.7 percent as compared to 3.0 percent in
the previous fiscal year 2011. The Agriculture sector recorded a
growth of 3.1 percent against 2.4
percent last year.
The Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) growth is 1.1 percent during July-March
2011-12 against 1.0 percent last year.
Overall, the commodity producing sectors and especially the
Agriculture sector have performed better. The Services sector recorded
growth of 4.0 percent in
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