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ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar Thursday formally launched the ‘Pakistan Economic Survey 2022-23’, that showed GDP increase at a lowly 0.3% after having set a target of 5% growth, while missing all annual targets during CFY 2022-23.
The launching ceremony among others was attended by Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Professor Ahsan Iqbal, Minister of State for Finance Dr Aisha Ghaus Pasha and senior officers.
Finance Minister, Senator Ishaq Dar, who is already facing harsh criticism on worst economic performance, shared the details of the document which showed that the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has posted growth of 0.3 percent, missing all annual targets during CFY 2022-23 due to variety of reasons including lingering political uncertainty, devastating floods, delay in resumption of IMF program and administrative restrictions on imports in the wake of declining foreign exchange reserves.
As he unveiled the outgoing fiscal year’s economic scorecard, Dar said Pakistan has already taken the tough reforms it needed.
“Any government that comes through polls can undertake tough political reforms,” said Dar. “We implemented them at the cost of political capital even though we took over mid-way.
“Despite all the constraints, including external and internal factors, we achieved GDP growth of 0.29% (provisionally). Agriculture, industry and services registered growth of 1.5%, -2.9% and 0.86%, respectively,” he said.
According to documents shared by the minister, Pakistan registered inflation of 28.2pc in the nine-month period from July 2022 to March 2023, against 11pc in the same period last year.
The government had targeted inflation at 11.5pc for FY2023, missing its target significantly because of a sharp depreciation of the rupee and global supply shocks resulting in pricey imports.
The survey document shows that Pakistan’s exports declined by 9.9pc during July to March to $21bn compared to $23bn in the same period last year.
Meanwhile, imports during the same period amounted to $43.7bn compared to $58.9bn in the same period last year, reflecting a decline of 25.7pc. This reduction came primarily because of policy tightening and other administrative measures as the government sought to protect its depleting foreign exchange reserves.
