The tilt in the economic policy to facilitate urban sectors under the Nawaz Sharif government got a positive response from industry and services, which were somewhat unnerved by the PPP’s policy to reverse the process of transfer of resources from the rural to urban sector.

Headline GDP for the first quarter of this fiscal was pleasantly surprising. The reported 5pc growth was better than most optimistic economic forecasts so far. The SBP, in its first quarterly report for 2013-14, released late last month, did raise questions about the sustainability of the trend and hinged the growth prospects on the implementation of structural reforms in the fiscal and energy sectors.

With fertiliser and paint industry leading, the large-scale manufacturing (LSM) sector posted an impressive growth, and with the help of the services sector, enabled GDP to grow by 5pc in the period under review. They also more than made up for the lag in growth of the agricultural sector.

Construction, retail and communication sectors are believed to have contributed to growth in services sector. According to the SBP report, “…nothing significant can be inferred about services till detailed information is available”.

Experts attribute the better-than-expected performance of urban sectors primarily to two factors: better energy supply (gas/electricity) to industry, and the confidence of the business community in the Nawaz Sharif government. Their mistrust of the PPP manifested in the slow business expansion during the party’s tenure of office.

During the PPP’s rule (2008-13), the performance of the agricultural sector was way better than its mean annual growth over the preceding decade from 1998-2008.

The fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector is said to have immensely benefited from the rural growth, as the purchasing power of the neglected population increased on the back of higher support prices of wheat and sugarcane. The demand for basic consumer items like soaps, toothpaste, washing powders, etc. is said to have risen dramatically.

The rural prosperity was also shared by businesses dealing with farm inputs like fertiliser, seeds etc., as a result of price hikes. Mechanisation of farming got a boost from increased subsidised tractor sales.

The freeze in the support price of wheat, besides other factors, experts believe, contributed to the underperformance of agriculture in the first quarter of the current fiscal.

Meanwhile, the State Bank’s first quarterly report for FY14 says, “industry and services were the major drivers of growth as agriculture underperformed”.

The dissection of growth data can help one guess the sustainability of the trend going forward. Large-scale manufacturing rebounded, recording an increase of 6.3pc during July-September 2013.

However, instead of the most talked about and visible sectors like textiles, automobiles and pharmaceutical, it was fertiliser, paint and paper industries that were able to better utilise their installed capacity.

As gas supplies to manufacturing plants improved, especially to Engro, the fertiliser industry posted a remarkable growth of about 42pc. The paint industry grew by 34pc, and steel billets by 32pc.

The paper industry grew by about 19pc on the back of captive power plants as the domestic market expanded exponentially owing to consumer choice shift towards packaged products.

It was followed by electronics which expanded by 16pc, petroleum products (14pc), leather (14pc), steel (13pc), cooking oil (12pc), ghee (10 pc), grain milling (5pc), chemicals and textiles (2pc), and pharmaceuticals (1pc).

Chaudhry Muhammad Saeed, former president of the Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was a little upset with the data on the performance of wheat.

“Except for wheat, all other crops are better than last year. The cotton body has turned in crop data, which confirms the size of the crop at 13.2 million bales. If things go as planned, the GDP growth rate for FY14 can actually be better than that in the first quarter,” he said.

Mohammed Sohail, CEO of Topline Securities, attributed the higher-than-expected GDP growth to partial resolution of the energy crisis and the revival of corporate activity under a government that is understood to be more business-friendly.

“The multilateral agencies reportedly estimated that the energy crisis costs 2pc loss in the GDP growth rate. The jump in the growth rate as the energy supply situation comparatively improved proves their assessment,” he told Dawn, while commenting on the SBP’s quarterly report.