Trade Chronicle May June 2017

TRADE CHRONICLE
Highest growth of 5.28 percent in a decade, size of the economy
surpasses $300 billion - Finance Minister launches Economic Survey
F i n a n c e M i n i s t e r S e n a t o r
Mohammad Ishaq Dar, has
launched the Pakistan Economic
Survey 2016-17 on May 25.
W h i l e a d d r e s s i n g a P r e s s
C o n f e r e n c e t h e M i n i s t e r
congratulated the nation that
Pakistan has achieved the highest
annual growth of 5.28 percent in a
decade and the size of the economy
has surpassed $300 billion. The 5.28
percent growth is achieved on the
back of recovery in the agriculture
sector and better than expected
performance in the services sector
along with consistent growth in
industrial sector.
The agriculture sector growth
remains impressive this year. The
production of important crops like
wheat, rice, sugar, maize remained
e n c o u r a g i n g a n d c o t t o n
production also remained higher
than last year, which helped in
agriculture growth. This was on
account of supportive agriculture
policies, healthy agriculture credit
disbursement and other supportive
m e a s u r e s p r o v i d e d t o t h e
agriculture sector. The PM Kissan
Package has started yielding the
dividend in agriculture sector.
It was also informed that the
government has been able to anchor
the inflation at 4.1% during first ten
month of current year and is likely to
contain it much below the annual
target of 6% despite reversal in
global commodities and oil prices.
The government on the social sector
also remained vigilant to reach the
poor and destitute class by
providing cash grant under BISP.
The cash grant increased to Rs.115
billion during current fiscal year.
The per capita income has increased
over last year by 7.4% to US dollar
Finance Minister, Senator Mohamamd Ishaq Dar displaying copy of Pakistan Economic
Survey 2016-17 at a launching ceremony held in Islamabad.
1628. The LSM sector recorded
impressive growth of 10.46% in
March 2017 largely benefitted from
accommodative monetary and fiscal
policies, improvement in energy
supplies, better availability of raw
material, rising domestic demand,
particularly for cement and steel,
owing to increase in development
s p e n d i n g i n p o w e r a n d
infrastructure projects.
The performance of the services
sector remained very encouraging
as it posted a growth of 5.98% on the
back of better output in agriculture
and industrial sector. The finance
and insurance growth remained
above 10% on the back of
improvement in asset base reaching
all time high to Rs.15.8 trillion and
capital adequacy ratio increased to
16.2%.
The Pakistan’s public debt
dynamics witnessed various
positive developments during first
nine months of current year as
government continued to adhere to
the targets set forth in Medium Term
Debt Management Strategy
(MTDS) to ensure public debt
sustainability and weighted average
interest rate on the domestic debt
portfolio has been further reduced
while cost of external debt
contracted by the government,
which is not only economical but is
also dominated by long term
funding.
The Minister while addressing the
press conference stated after
successful operation of Zarb-e-Azb,
a country-wide operation Radd-ul-
Fassad has been launched for
eliminating further any extremism.
In this backdrop, success in counterterrorism
has played a critical role in
creating conducive economic
environment, whose results have
now started appearing in terms of
growth across different segments of
the economy.
The capital market has reached the
historical height above 52000
index. In terms of market
capitalisation, it has reached to Rs.
10.4 trillion. The reserves have
been strengthened enough to cover
more than 3 months of imports,
despite the government paid off
loans obtained by the previous
governments.
The Minister stated that we are not
complacent of this economic
turnaround but we are looking
towards a higher inclusive growth
trajectory above 6% to absorb the
growing labour force and are
determined to provide decent and
respectable standard of living to the
people.
TRADE CHRONICLE - May.~Jun. 2017 - Page # 09