Pak economy grows 3.94% with V-shaped recovery

Pakistan's V-shaped economic recovery on the back of broad-based growth across all sectors has enabled it to witness a 3.94 per cent growth during the first nine months of FY21 (July 2020-March 2021).
Unveiling the economic survey on Thursday on the eve of the presentation of the budget for FY22 (July 2021-June 2022) in the National Assembly, Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin said that the growth exceeded the government's target of 2.1 per cent as manufacturing and services sectors made remarkable progress during the ongoing financial year, reports Xinhua news agency.

The economic survey is an annual report on the performance of the economy, focusing in particular on major macroeconomic indicators.

The survey said that manufacturing has witnessed broad-based growth as major sectors of large-scale manufacturing including textile, food beverages and tobacco, non-metallic mineral products and automobile have shown significant improvement, due to which the first nine months of FY21 recorded the highest period-wise growth of 8.99 per cent since 2007.

Tax collection of the Federal Board of Revenue also witnessed a significant growth of around 18 per cent during July-May FY21 owing to the revival of domestic economic activity and ongoing comprehensive tax policy and administrative reforms, it added.

Shedding light on the impact of Covid-19 on the economy, the survey said that the economy was recovering from macroeconomic imbalances before 2020, but the pandemic slowed down the pace which was recovered initially and the advent of the second and third wave brought significant challenges which were met by the timely prudent policies.

The finance minister showed resolve to further grow the economy after its recovery from the pandemic-stricken FY20 by taking measures to uplift agricultural and industrial sectors, and widening the tax net by bringing reforms in the Federal Board of Revenue.-IANS