Pakistan’s economy grew by 1.73 per cent in the second quarter (October-December) of fiscal year 2024-25, according to estimates released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Tuesday.
This growth was achieved despite a decline in industrial activity, which shrank by 0.18 per cent during the same period, as noted in a PBS press release following the National Accounts Committee (NAC) meeting.
In contrast, the agriculture sector saw a growth of 1.1 per cent, while the services sector grew by 2.57 per cent.
The committee also revised the GDP growth for the first quarter of fiscal year 2023-24, raising it to 1.34 per cent from an earlier estimate of 0.92 per cent. This revision was attributed to improved performance in the services sector, which grew from 1.43 per cent to 2.21 per cent, and the industrial sector, where the contraction was revised from -1.03 per cent to -0.66 per cent.
However, the NAC noted that crop production contracted by 5.38 per cent in the second quarter of the current fiscal year. Key crops like cotton, maize, rice, and sugarcane all saw declines in output.
Cotton production, for example, dropped by 30.7 per cent, maize by 15.4 per cent, rice by 1.4 per cent, and sugarcane by 2.3 per cent. Wheat production also fell by 6.8 per cent in terms of the area cultivated compared to last year.
The NAC attributed part of this decline to a “high base” from the previous fiscal year, which made it harder for growth to show up in key crops.
Despite the overall industrial contraction slowing from 1.81 per cent in the second quarter of the previous fiscal year to 0.18 per cent in the same period this year, certain sectors continued to struggle.
The mining and quarrying sector shrank by 3.29 per cent, and large-scale manufacturing (LSM), based on the Quantum Index of Manufacturing, fell by 2.86 per cent. Declines in sugar (-12.63 per cent), cement (-1.82 per cent), and iron & steel (-17.86 per cent) contributed to this slowdown.
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