Dar eyes 7pc growth in fiscal 2018/19

KARACHI: Pakistan’s economy is likely to reach a growth rate of seven percent by 2018/19 with the help of supportive economic indicators, finance minister said on Monday.  

“We have achieved GDP growth near to five percent from the nominal three percent despite the challenges (three years back),” Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said. Dar said all have to join forces to achieve the estimated growth rates.

The government eyed GDP growth rate at 5.7 percent for the fiscal year of 2016/17.  The government registered growth rate at 4.7 percent with major contribution of industry and service sectors for the last fiscal year of 2015/16 against the target of 5.5 percent. 

The country’s agriculture sector endured a negative growth of 0.19 percent owing to a decline in outputs of major crops, including cotton. The share of services sector stood at 58.4 percent and industrial sector at 20.5 percent.

Average annual growth rate, during the last three years of the present Nawaz-led government, came about at four percent. The revised figures by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics brought down the growth rates for FY15 at 4.04 percent as against the earlier provisional figure of 4.24 percent and at 4.05 percent as against earlier estimate of 4.03 percent.