GDP growth rate target for ongoing fiscal year missed

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has missed its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth target for the ongoing fiscal year 2010-11 by a wide margin and GDP growth has been recorded at 2.4 percent against the budgetary target of 4.5 percent. The provisional GDP growth of 2.4 percent of the GDP was also below by 0.4 percent against the downward revised GDP growth target of 2.8 percent of the GDP for the ongoing fiscal year, 2010-11, official sources informed Daily Times on Wednesday. National Accounts Committee (NAC), which met under the chairmanship of Federal Statistics Division secretary, Asif Bajwa, approved the GDP growth estimates for 2010-11 in accordance with the sectoral estimates up to nine month (July-March) provided by the provinces and federal economic ministries. The fall in GDP growth has been attributed to the impact of devastating floods in the country, gas and power shortages, law and order situation, less than projected performance of industry and agriculture sectors. However, good performance by the services sector, 4.1 percent growth against the target of 4.7 percent, helped the economy to post a growth of 2.4 percent in the outgoing fiscal year 2010-11, added the official sources. According to the sectoral growth and targets, the productive and job creating sectors of economy, like agriculture and industry, performed below expectations. Agriculture sector failed to perform according to its potential and posted a negligible growth of 1.2 percent against the target of 3.8 percent. Wheat production estimating at 24.2 million tonnes against 25 million tonnes and cotton production recording at 11.6 million bales against the target of 14 million bales resulted in lower growth in the agriculture sector as well as major crops. The performance of the major crops witnessed a negative growth of 4.03 percent in 2010-11 against negative 2.36 percent in the last fiscal year, 2009-10. However, the performance of the minor crops remained good and posted a growth of 4.8 percent in 2010-11 against negative 4.8 percent in 2009-10. Livestock sector posted a growth of 3.7 percent in 2010-11. The industrial sector, which is known as a job-creating sector, posted a negative growth of 0.07 percent in 2010-11 against the growth of 8.3 percent in the last fiscal year. The large-scale manufacturing sector posted a negligible growth of 0.98 percent in 2010-11 against 4.93 percent in 2009-10. The growth in manufacturing sector, however, remained at 2.96 percent and construction sector posted a growth of 0.82 percent in 2010-11. Services sector, which is also a non-job creating sector of the economy, has posted a growth of 4.1 percent of the GDP against the target of 4.7 percent for 2010-11. The growth in services sector was recorded at 2.91 percent last year.

With the availability of verified data, the National Accounts Committee also revised downwards GDP growth estimates for 2009-10 from 4.1 percent to 3.8 percent of the GDP. sajid chaudhry

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