KARACHI, Dec 22: The large-scale manufacturing (LSM) production in first three months of the current fiscal year dropped to one third of what it achieved in the corresponding period of the previous year.
The latest data of Federal Bureau of Statistics shows that overall production of large-scale manufacturing during July-September 2005-06 was 8.7 per cent compared to 24.9 per cent of the corresponding period of the last year.
Out of 14 major sectors, 10 sectors recorded a lower than previous year’s growth during the period under review.
The textile sector could not pick up pace to chase the last year’s production. The growth in textile production was just 7.2 per cent compared to 29.6 per cent of the last year. The drop reflects lower cotton production in the country which slipped from the target of 15 million bales to around 13 million bales. However, the slow growth has another important factor of lower than expected export growth in the textile industry.
The data analysis shows that the economic mangers of the country still rely on few sectors to get maximum contribution in the GDP growth. These are textile, auto, electronics and fertilizers.
If these four sectors are excluded from the LSM production, the growth further slips to just 4.1 per cent.
Production of fertilizers, which registered a growth of 81.4 per cent during the last year’s first three months, dropped to 12.9 per cent during the current year. It also reflects slow activity in the agriculture sector which contributes 25 per cent to the GDP growth. Independent economists estimate that the agriculture growth might be around 5 per cent compared to 7.5 per cent growth of last year.
The auto sector, which brought a boom in the economic activity, was still significantly behind the last year’s rate of growth. The sector grew at 32.4 per cent compared to 40.2 per cent of the same period last year.
Highest growth was noted in production of trucks which jumped by 165 per cent compared to minus 12.9 per cent. Bus production dropped to minus 43.3 per cent and cars and jeeps output slipped to 29.5 per cent compared to 65.2 per cent and 36.4 per cent of the corresponding period of last year.
Production of electronic items remained far below than the previous year as it registered a growth of just 9.8 per cent compared to 71.3 per cent growth recorded during the same period last year.
The most important factor was the steep fall in production of air- conditioners and deep-freezers which dipped to minus 3.2 per cent and 8.3 per cent against a growth rate of 976 per cent and 109 per cent of last year respectively.
The sectors which performed better than last year were pharmaceuticals, leather products and paper and board and engineering. Pharmaceutical products registered a growth of 15.7 per cent compared to 2.1 per cent, leather products 17.9 per cent compared to minus 8.8 per cent and paper and board 17.8 per cent compared to 0.1 per cent. Production of engineering items recorded a growth of 35.4 per cent compared to 14 per cent during the same period of last year.
Production of metal industry registered a steep fall of minus 62.1 per cent compared to a growth of 0.3 per cent during the same period last year.
Pig iron, coke, billets, coils and plates production showed negative growth which may emerge as a major cause of low growth in the construction industry and all related industries using metals for their products.
Out of 14 LSM products, only four showed better strength while the rest 10 items which include the four heavy weight items, recorded lower growth rates than last year.
Petroleum sector output fell to 1.3 per cent from 17.2 per cent, food and beverages 10 per cent from 13.5 per cent, non-metallic 14.1 per cent from 17.2 per cent, tyres and tubes minus 16.4 per cent from 19.1 per cent and wood products 15.4 per cent from 451.6 per cent.
