Economy grew by 5.3% in outgoing fiscal year; imports increased by almost 20%

ISLAMABAD: Key points of the Pakistan Economic Survey 2016-17 were acquired by Geo News on Wednesday. These indicate that in the outgoing fiscal year 2016-17, the country’s growth rate was 5.3%.

Moreover, the per capita income in the outgoing fiscal year grew by 2.9%, and now stands at $1,629.

The agriculture sector — the biggest chunk of the economy — grew by 3.46%. Crops sector grew by 3.02%, wherein major crops grew by 4.12% and minor crops by 0.21% only. The sub-sectors of cotton ginning grew by 5.59% while livestock by 3.43%.

The country’s industries sector grew by 5.02%, with large-scale industries growing by 4.93% and small-scale industries growing by 8.18%.

The electricity and gas production and distribution grew by 3.40% and the manufacturing industry grew by 9.05%.

The services sector saw a growth of 5.98%. The retail and wholesale sector grew by 6.82% while the banking sector grew by 10.77%.

The Foreign Direct Investment rose by 12.4%.

In the first 10 months of the outgoing fiscal year, exports fell by 2.3% while imports increased by 19.88%.

In the same time period, the trade deficit stood at 40% while inflation at 4.8%.

In the first nine months of the outgoing fiscal year, foreign remittances fell by 2.3%.