KARACHI: The private sector credit off-take for FY18 stood at Rs601 billion, down 19.65 per cent, from Rs748bn in FY17, the State Bank of Pakistan released on Monday.

The government which completed its tenure on May 31 had set the GDP target of 6 per cent, however, with the passage of time doubts have emerged over the target.

The SBP in its second quarterly report said the country’s economy is likely to surpass last year’s growth rate (5.3 per cent), however, the GDP growth would remain slightly below the target of 6pc (in FY18).

Both the imports and exports showed growth this year, indicating a higher economic activity but the participation of private sector could not surpass last year’s figure.

For large part of this fiscal year, the interest rate remained around 6pc while the inflation was lower than the policy interest rate — an attractive situation for the private sector.

The economy remained at risk due to increasing current account deficit which rose to $16bn in the first 11 months of FY18. Higher deficit was caused by exorbitant oil imports, significantly maturing external debt repayments and poor growth in worker remittances during the 11 months.

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2018