ISLAMABAD
\nThe Economic Survey for the fiscal year 2024\u201325, launched in Islamabad on Monday, showed an upward economic trajectory, recording a 2.68 percent GDP growth rate.
\nUnveiling the Survey, Minister for Finance Muhammad Aurangzeb mentioned that this is a gradual recovery, but the right path forward is to achieve sustainable growth.
\nHe said this upward economic trajectory is a result of effective macroeconomic management, improved fiscal and external account balances, and a significant reduction in inflation.
\nHe said that our recovery should also be seen in the context of global GDP growth, which remained at 3.3 percent last year and is estimated to decline to 2.8 percent this year.
\nThe Finance Minister expressed satisfaction over the major decline in the inflation rate, saying it has come down to 4.6 percent as compared to twenty-three percent last year.
\nHe emphasized that the government has consolidated recovery in the current fiscal year.
\nGiving a breakdown of the performance of different sectors, he pointed out that industry grew by 4.8 percent. Small manufacturing grew by 1.3 percent, while large-scale manufacturing contracted, but the contraction was less than last year.
\nHe, however, said that the auto sector went up by 40 percent, wearing apparel 8 percent, textiles 2 percent, and petroleum products 4.5 percent.
\nHe said services registered growth of 2.9 percent, Information and Communication 6.5 percent, Construction & Real Estate 3.8 percent, and Food Services 4.1 percent.
\nAs regards agriculture, the Finance Minister said it grew by 0.6 percent. He said livestock went up by 4.7 percent, while poultry performed extremely well, growing at 8 percent. Fisheries and forestry also registered growth. He said fruits and vegetables collectively grew by 4.8 percent.
\nHe said that agriculture credit increased by 16 percent, crossing over two trillion rupees. He expressed the commitment to further increase credit across the entire supply and value chains of agriculture, emphasizing that this will make a difference in major crops.
\nOn the external side, he said that our current account had a surplus of 1.9 billion dollars in the first ten months of the current fiscal year, expressing confidence that the year will end in surplus.
\nHe said there has been an increase of 7 percent in overall exports, with exports of IT standing at 3.1 billion dollars. He said overall imports increased by 11.7 percent. The imports of machinery and transport witnessed an increase of 16.5 percent and 26 percent respectively, emphasizing that this will augur well for the agriculture and industrial sectors.
\nThe Finance Minister also mentioned the expression of confidence shown by international financial institutions in the country\u2019s economy, as well as the upgrading of its ranking by Fitch and Moody\u2019s.
\nHe said Pakistan secured the recent tranche from the IMF despite all odds, and referred to obstacles created by India in this regard. He said world financial institutions and our bilateral partners are standing by Pakistan on the economic front.
\nMuhammad Aurangzeb emphasized the need for enhanced allocation of resources to deal with the challenge of climate change. He said we will focus on projects in the next fiscal year that enhance our resilience and adaptation.
\nThe Finance Minister said that revenue collection grew by 26 percent in the first eleven months of the current fiscal year.
\nMuhammad Aurangzeb said that economic recovery was consolidated during the current fiscal year and expressed firm determination to stay the course to ensure a sustainable growth trajectory.
\nThe Minister said current policy rate declined to 11 percent from 22 percent, while debt-to-GDP ratio came down to 65 percent from 68 percent.
\nHe mentioned that debt servicing is the single largest expense item for the government. Due to reduction in the policy rate, 800 billion rupees to one trillion rupees have been saved over the last one year in debt servicing cost.
\nAnswering a question, the Secretary Finance said the government curtailed its expenditures to the maximum level.
\nReplying to another question, the Finance Minister said the government is working to address the issue of circular debt.
\nAccording to the Economic Survey, over 598 billion rupees were allocated to the Benazir Income Support Programme to ensure social protection of the vulnerable segments of the society during the outgoing fiscal year. Around 9.87 million beneficiaries receive financial assistance under the BISP.
\nThe report revealed that workers\u2019 remittances stood at 31.2 billion dollars in the first ten months of the fiscal year 2024-2025, showing a significant increase as compared to the previous year. Similarly, foreign exchange reserves surged to 16.6 billion dollars.
\nIn fiscal year 2024-25, national savings outpaced the total investment, reflecting a surplus on the external account. The National Savings remained 14.1 percent, while investment recorded 13.8 percent and per capita income touched the mark of 1824 dollars.
\nThe Pakistan Stock Exchange registered a bullish trend of 50.2 percent during the outgoing fiscal year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD The Economic Survey for the fiscal year 2024\u201325, launched in Islamabad on Monday, showed an upward economic trajectory, recording a 2.68 percent GDP growth rate. Unveiling the Survey, Minister for Finance Muhammad Aurangzeb mentioned that this is a gradual recovery, but the right path forward is to achieve sustainable growth. He said this upward …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":82172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82186,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82162\/revisions\/82186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}