Salient featuers of Pakistan economy

SALIENT FEATURES OF PAKISTAN’S ECONOMY
Source: Pakistan Economic Survey 2007-08 issued on 10th June 2008

• GDP grew by 5.8 percent in 2007-08 as against 6.8 percent last year and growth
target of 7.2%. The economy has shown great resilience against internal and
external shocks of extraordinary nature during the out going fiscal year.
Pakistan’s economy has grown at an average rate of almost 6.6 percent per annum
during the last five years.
• Agriculture sector showed dismal performance and grew by 1.5 percent as
against 3.7 percent last year and target of 4.8 percent..
• Overall manufacturing, accounting for 18.9 percent of GDP registered a modest
growth of 5.4 percent against 8.2 percent last year.
• Pakistan’s per capita real GDP has risen at a faster pace in real terms during the
last six years (4.5% per annum on average in rupee terms). The per capita income
in dollar term has grown at an average rate of 13.5 percent per annum during the
last six years rising from $ 586 in 2002-03 to $ 1085 in 2007-08.
• The main factor responsible for the sharp rise in per capita income include four
fold increase in the inflows of workers’ remittances, acceleration in real GDP
growth, and stable exchange rate.
• Fixed investment has declined to 20.0 percent of GDP from 21.3 percent last
year.
• Overall Foreign Investment during the first ten months (July-April) of the
current fiscal year has declined by 32.2 percent and stood at $ 3.6 billion as
against $5.3 billion in the comparable period of last year.
• The agriculture growth this year is estimated at 1.5 percent as compared with
3.7 percent during 2006-07.
• The main contributors to manufacturing sector, the 4.8 percent growth during
July-March 2007-08 were beverages (30.5%), sugar (34.0%), beverages
(30.5%),upper leather (13.5%), cement (17.9%), refrigerators (10.7%) , electric
fans (18.3%), TV sets (19.3%), diesel engines (46.0%), buses (32.1%), motor
cycles (28.1%), and LCV’S (60.5%).
• Total revenues collected during the current year stood at Rs 1545.5 billion,
higher than the targeted level of Rs 1476 billion. However, there are expectations
that the FBR may fall short of its targeted level, and the year is most likely to end
with total tax collections amounting to Rs 1.0 trillion—Rs. 25 billion less than the
original target.