ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Thursday presented Economic Survey Report of 2015-16, according to which the country achieved gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 4.7 percent during the outgoing financial year.
In a news briefing in Islamabad on Thursday afternoon, the minister said that the country could not achieve the GDP growth rate target of 5.21 percent due to losses in cotton crop which had a negative impact of 0.5 percent on the overall GDP growth rate.
The finance minister said that the industrial growth stood at 6.8 percent as against revised target of 4.81 percent of last year. He said that large-scale manufacturing registered growth of 4.61 percent as against 3.29 percent last year.
The minister said that major improvement was shown by automobile sector which grew by 23.4 percent followed by fertilizer 115.9 percent, leather products 12 percent, rubber products 11.7 percent, cement 10,4 percent, chemicals 10 percent and fertilizer 7.2 percent.
Ishaq Dar said that electricity generation and gas distribution showed growth of 12.18 percent as compared to last year’s growth of 13.10 percent.
Likewise, construction sector also registered 13.10 percent increase as compared to last year’s growth of 6.24 percent.
The finance minister said that services sector also showed increased in growth at 7.71 percent as against 4.31 percent last year.
The minister said that earnings of Pakistan Railways showed an improvement of 13.8 percent.
Ishaq Dar said that agriculture sector showed negative growth of 0.19 percent as against the target of 3.9 percent. He said that wheat production marginally increased from 25 million tonnes last year to 25.48 million tonnes this year.
Moreover, he said that rice production was marginally low with 6.81 million tonnes this year as against seven million tonnes last year. Cotton production dropped from 13.96 million bales last year to 10.07 million bales this year, he said.
The Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that country’s foreign exchange reserves achieved new record of $21.6 billion on May 30 this year. He said that rupee-dollar parity is stable and per capita income stood at $1560.7.
Ishaq Dar said that exports stood at $18.18 billion and imports at $32.70 billion during first 10 months of the current financial year.
Remittances by Overseas Pakistanis stood at 16.3 percent in 10 months and Foreign direct investment (FDI) increased by 5.4 percent. Most of the FDI went to electricity and gas sectors, Ishaq Dar said.
Likewise, he said that stock market index crossed 36,000 points.
The finance minister said that the cost of war on terror to the economy this year was $5.56 billion, taking the total to $118.32 billion.
The minister said that the next budget would be growth oriented with focus on agriculture.
