Pakistan 'beats' all key growth targets.

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Shaukat Tarin Thursday said that owing to prudent and timely policies adopted by the government, Pakistan achieved remarkable gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 3.94% during the ongoing fiscal year (2020-21), amid hostile Covid-19 situation.

Addressing the launching ceremony of Pakistan Economic Survey for the fiscal year 2020-21, the minister said growth projection for the current fiscal year was 2.1%, while the world financial institutions including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) had forecast even lower growth. However, the minister added, due to the timely interventions and prudent policies by the government, the GDP witnessed remarkable growth of 3.94%. "In terms of growth rate, Pakistan is ahead of targets set by the government as well as the IMF for the outgoing fiscal year," he added.

The minister said the government provided incentives to manufacturing sector and facilitated businesses by providing incentives in gas and electricity besides making interventions in agriculture sector, which helped positive development towards growth. He said the Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) witnessed growth of 9%, while agriculture sector also grew by 2.77%, whereas the overseas Pakistani workers' remittances crossed $26 billion and are expected to go up to $30 billion. He said the government had tackled the Covid-19 pandemic in a wise manner, due to which, Pakistan had been witnessing growth at a time when the world economies were facing difficulties. However, he said Pakistan became net importer of food items including wheat, sugar, palm oil, and pulses which had put burden on current account balance, however added that the country's exports were witnessing growth.

He said although inflation had gone up, but as compared to other world countries it was comparatively low in Pakistan adding that the government was making all out efforts to bring it down and provide relief to the common people. He said Covid-19 had badly hit the working population as the number of working people brought down from 57.74 million to 35 million, depriving over 20 million from their jobs and livelihood. However, he said policies introduced by the prime minister to reduce the after-effects of the pandemic, the number of working population started to enhance and reached again up to 50 million by October 2020, hence helped in regaining the economic activity in the country.

In order to sustain the...