Islamabad (Web Desk): The Economic Survey for 2019-20 reveals seventy three percent decline in current account deficit, bringing it down from 20 billion dollars to three billion dollars, Radio Pakistan reported.
The survey was launched by Advisor on Finance Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh at a news conference in Islamabad today (Thursday).
The Advisor said fiscal deficit has been curtailed to four percent of the GDP from 5.1 percent of previous year.
Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said due to the negative impact of COVID-19, the growth rate remained 0.4 percent against the estimated 3 percent.
Giving a break up, the adviser said the agriculture sector recorded strong growth of 2.67 percent considerably higher than 0.58 percent growth achieved during the last year.
The provisional growth in industrial sector has been estimated at minus two point six four percent mainly due to the negative growth of 8.82 percent in mining and quarrying sector and decline of 7.78 percent in large scale manufacturing sector. Due to lockdown situation in the country, the growth estimates of small scale industry for the outgoing fiscal year are 1.52 percent.
The services sector has declined provisionally at 0.59 percent mainly due to 3.42 percent decline in wholesale and retail trade sector and 7.13 percent decline in transport, storage and communication sectors.
Finance and insurance sector witnessed a slight increase of 0.79 percent.
The Housing Services, General government services and other private services have contributed positively at 4.02, 3.92 and 5.39 percent respectively.
During the first seven months of fiscal year, inflationary pressures were observed and inflation rose to 14.6 percent in January this year. However, due to government's timely measures, the Consumer Price Index declined to single digit at 8.5 percent in April this year. This was third successive month showing decline in inflation, whereas it dropped more than six percent in last three months.
The total imports during the first ten months of the outgoing fiscal year declined to 36.1 billion dollars as compared to 40.3 billion dollars last year, registering a decline of 16.9 percent. During the first ten months, remittances also increased to 18.8 billion dollars as compared to 17.8 billion dollars during the same period previous year.