ISLAMABAD: The National Accounts Committee (NAC) on Friday announced that the economy grew by 5.22 per cent in 2017-18 – the last year of the PML-N government’s five-year tenure.

In April 2018, the NAC had provisionally projected that the economy would grow by 5.79pc but it still fell behind the target of 6pc projected for 2017-18. Similarly, the final growth figures for the year 2016-17 were estimated at 5.37pc, which now stand at 5.38pc in the revised estimates.

These figures were reviewed and revised in the 100th meeting of the NAC headed by Secretary Statistics Dr Shaista Sohail to review the final and revised estimates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the years 2016-17 and 2017-18.

The provisional GDP estimates for the year 2017-18 and revised GDP estimates for the year 2016-17 presented in the 99th meeting of the NAC have been updated on the basis of latest available data.

The special meeting of the NAC was called to meet the requirement of Ministry of Planning, Development and Reforms for revised GDP data for the year 2017-18 to provide them a baseline to work on 12th Five Year Plan (2018-23). However, the GDP data presented before Friday’s meeting of the NAC is subject to minor changes in the next meeting.

The revised growth in the agriculture sector for 2017-18 has been estimated at 3.70pc which was provisionally estimated at 3.81pc. Moreover, growth in crops improved from 3.83pc to 4.24pc whereas livestock decreased from 3.76 pc to 3.62pc.

As per data, the growth in industrial sector was 5.01pc against the provisional estimates of 5.80pc. Mining and quarrying improved from provisional growth of 3.04pc to 3.89pc whereas LSM – which is based on QIM (Quantum Index of Large Scale Manufacturing) – has declined from 6.13pc to 5.01pc. The revised growth in construction sector stands at 7.07pc which was 9.13pc in the provisional estimates.

In the services sector, growth declined from provisional estimates of 6.43pc to 5.78pc, wholesale and retail trade declined from 7.51pc to 6.40pc, transport, storage and communication sector declined to 1.96pc from provisional growth of 3.58pc. Meanwhile, growth in finance and insurance sector growth declined 5.4pc from the 6.13pc.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2019