Download Growth target missed by 0.8 percent on agriculture woes

Growth target missed by 0.8 percent on
agriculture woes
May 21, 2016
ZAHEER ABBASI
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The government has missed GDP growth target by 0.8 percent on account of poor performance of agriculture sector
as National Accounts Committee (NAC) meeting estimated 4.7 percent growth against a target of 5.5 percent for the
current fiscal year. A meeting of NAC chaired by Secretary Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday reviewed
the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the year 2015-16 with analysts saying that rural economy will be under
pressure following a negative growth in agriculture sector. They argued that the sector showed a negative growth of
0.19 percent against the target of 3.9 percent as performance of major crops was dismally poor, which analysts
maintain that agriculture sector is bound to increase rural poverty as around 42 percent workforce is linked to rural
economy. According to NAC the growth of crops during 2015-16 is negative by 6.25 percent and production of cotton,
rice and maize has decreased by 27.8 percent, 2.7 percent and 0.4% respectively whereas the production of wheat
and sugarcane increased by 1.6 and 4.2 per cent. Livestock sector registered a normal growth of 3.63 percent,
according to National Accounts Committee. The growth of industrial and services sectors was 6.80 percent and 5.71
percent, respectively. The industrial and services sectors have been the major contributors to 4.71 per cent GDP
growth as mining and quarrying registered a growth of 6.80 percent. PBS stated that the main contributor to querying
and mining is the group of 37 minerals as per data provided by the provincial mining departments. However, the
production of crude oil decreased by 8.2 percent and contribution of large scale manufacturing sector by 4.70 per
cent. Major contributors to the large scale manufacturing are 10.4 percent growth in cement, 16.3 percent growth in
fertiliser and 29.7 percent growth by automobiles followed by cooking oil 8.4 per cent, etc. However, production of pig
iron, electric motors, tractors, chip board etc have decreased but the sub sector of electricity and gas growth
increased by 12.18 percent. The overall services sector has shown growth of 5.71 percent and wholesale and retail
trade sector grew at a rate of 4.57 percent which is dependent on agriculture and industry sectors output as well as
imports. Transport, storage and communication sector grew at a rate of 4.06 percent. Finance and insurance shows
an overall increase of 7.84 percent while general government services grew by 11.13 per cent, compared to the
previous year''s revised growth of 4.82 percent. This, according to PBS, was mainly driven by an increase in salaries
and inflation. Other private services also contributed positively. GDP at Current Market Prices: GDP at current market
prices has also been computed and stands at Rs 29,597 billion for 2015-16. This shows a growth of 7.7 percent over
Rs 27,493 billion for 2014-15. The per capita income calculates to Rs 162,568 for 2015-16. The NAC also prepared
Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF) on the basis of the latest data available for six to nine months and projected
for the whole year. The estimates of 2013-14 and 2014-15 for GDP and GFCF presented before the last meeting of
National Accounts Committee (NAC) on May 18, 2015 have also been updated based on the latest available
information and were also presented.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2016