Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that the industrial sector is showing sustained growth, adding cumulative growth from July to December last year remained above 8 per cent.
In a Facebook post on Sunday, the premier said that large scale manufacturing (LSM) saw another double-digit growth of 11.4 per cent in December last year as compared to the same month of the previous year. The prime minister added the cumulative growth in the first six months of the current fiscal year i.e. from July to December is above eight per cent now.
Earlier on February 13, the government cheered the momentous run of the LSM sector consecutively for the six months in December, with industrial units in speed mode to meet a rebound in consumer demand.
LSM, which makes 80 per cent of the industrial sector in Pakistan, posted 8.16 per cent growth in the first half of the current fiscal year and grew 11.4 per cent year on year in December and 13.5 per cent over November, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
“Robust growth trends of large scale manufacturing have continued in December,” Hammad Azhar, minister for industries and production wrote on Twitter.
In July-December, all three data collection authorities registered an increase in production. The Ministry of industries, measuring the output trend of 36 items, recorded a 6.23 per cent increase in production. The provincial bureau of statistics, counting production of 65 products, logged 1.63 per cent growth. Oil Companies Advisory Council, logging outputs of 11 oil and petroleum products, measured growth of 0.29 per cent year-on-year.
The government was expecting contraction in the current fiscal year when the coronavirus crisis rocked the economy that was trying to recover. LSM contracted 10.2 per cent last fiscal year. Overall, the manufacturing sector shrank 2.6 per cent in FY2020 as shutdowns and supply chain disruptions related to Covid-19 exacerbated other adverse factors affecting the sector since FY2019.
The production in July-December 2020-21 as compared to July-December 2019-20 increased in textile, food, beverages and tobacco, coke and petroleum products, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, non-metallic mineral products, automobiles, fertilisers and paper and paperboard while it decreased in electronics, leather products and engineering products, said the PBS.
Moreover, Federal Minister for Finance Hafeez Shaikh has said that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) top priority is to prevent a spike in the price of essential commodities.
“The government is facing the challenge of reducing taxes on imported items,” he said while addressing the media in the federal capital.
“When Imran Khan came to power, the financial deficit stood at $20 billion,” Shaikh said adding that “the external deficit has now turned into a surplus”.
The minister explained that there had been no exports during the previous regimes, but the situation is vastly improved now. “Even in the times of Covie-19, the exports increased,” he said.
The government, he added, doubled the budget of the Ehsaas Programme to Rs200 billion.”
