Cement output increased by 22.5 per cent: LSM pattern unchanged
By Shahid Iqbal
KARACHI, Oct 3: The latest official data issued on Wednesday does not show any significant change in the pattern of economic growth recorded last year as well as the one prevailing for last five years.
The dominant textile sector still has the largest share in the economic growth while all other traditional sectors of the economy remained the part of the growth with slight changes in their growth pattern.
No new sector emerged during the year 2006-07 to become a key player in the growth of economy neither any traditional sector appeared with its extra ordinary performance.
However, the construction industry looked a major sector, which improved its performance comparatively better than previous year. The cement sector, which has a weight of 4.14 per cent in the economy, grew at the rate of 22.5 per cent.
The pig Iron grew at the rate of 31.4 per cent while the overall metal industry grew at a rate of 10.7 per cent.
The textile sector, which has a weight of 24.49 per cent in the economy, showed a production growth of 8.5 per cent. This was not an attractive growth to give a big push to the economy as expected by the government. It also showed dismal growth on the export front despite the recipient of the largest incentives provided by the government.
What is important for the country is the petroleum production, which instead of going up to bear the rising burden of the petroleum imports, showed a negative growth of 1.8 per cent. The country’s import bill carries the largest amount of petroleum products reaching almost $8 billion.
The most talked about automobile sector was another one, which showed a disappointing growth during the last fiscal. The government expects that the automobile sector would prove to be one of the pillars of the economy. The sector growth was just 3.8 per cent.
Cars and jeeps having largest share in the automobile sector could hardly retain their growth in positive number as this sub-sector grew by just 0.4 per cent. Motorcycles growth was 11.6pc but this sub-sector has just 0.137 per cent weigh in the economy.
Food, beverage and tobacco were the second biggest sector in terms of its weight in the economy, which was 14 per cent, showed a growth of 8 per cent. This traditional sector could only maintain its traditionally normal growth.
The only significant growth in this sector was of beverages, which shot up by 34 per cent.
Pharmaceutical products, which has a weight of over 5 per cent in the economy, moved up with a significant growth of 12.2 per cent and this growth was led by 47 per cent growth in the injections.
Chemicals having a weight of 4.8 per cent, showed a growth of 11.7 per cent. Electronics sector grew by 9.4 per cent led by 20.4 per cent growth of electric transformers.
However, the sub-sector television, registered a sharp decline with a negative production of 35.9 per cent.
Engineering items having a weight of 0.44 per cent showed a growth of 28.8 per cent led by sewing machines and diesel engines with a growth of 33.7 per cent and 37.1 per cent, respectively.
