ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Thursday released the Economic Survey for the outgoing fiscal year 2014-15, according to which the country recorded gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 4.2% during the current financial year.
In a news conference in Islamabad on Thursday evening, the minister said that the inflation rate is expected to close below 5 percent by the end of this financial year.
The minister expressed the confidence that the revised tax collection target of Rs2605 billion would be achieved. He said that in the first 10 months of the current financial year, Rs1972 billion were collected.
The finance minister said that the country suffered losses worth $107 billion due to war on terror from 2001 to 2015. He said that this year’s estimates are $4.5 billion as against $6.6 billion last year.
Ishaq Dar said that exports are expected to reach $27 billion and in the first 10 months export proceeds stood at $20.18 billion.
The minister said that current account deficit during first 10 months of the year was $1.36 billion as against target of $2.82 billion r for the whole year.
Moreover, he said that there has been 16 percent increase in remittances by Overseas Pakistanis in the first 10 months of this year as against same period last year.
The federal minister for finance said that the foreign investment in first 10 months of the year was $2.60 billion as against $3.11 billion same period last year.
The minister said that the foreign exchange reserves stood at $16.73 billion yesterday and they are expected to cross $17 billion tomorrow. He said that the exchange rate in June last year was 102.86 rupee a dollar whereas the interbank rate yesterday was 101.88 rupee.
Ishaq Dar said that the per capita income now is $1513 as against $1384 in June last year.
The finance minister also announced medium term macroeconomic target of the present government from 2015 to 2018.
