ISLAMABAD, June 11: The manufacturing sector continued to maintain its growth momentum during the current fiscal year and recorded an impressive and broad-based growth of 13.4 per cent, against the target of 7.8 per cent and the last year's growth of 6.9 per cent.

According to Economic Survey 2003-04, the large-scale manufacturing, accounting for 67.5 per cent of overall manufacturing, registered an impressive growth of 17.1 per cent in the current fiscal 2003-04) against a target of 8.8 per cent and last year's achievement of 7.2 per cent. This is the highest growth in large-scale manufacturing ever achieved in the country's history.

The main contributors to growth of 17.1 percent in July- March, 2003-04 over last year were the automobile group (52.7 per cent), the food, beverage & tobacco group (13.7 per cent), the textiles & apparel group (7 per cent), paper & board (7.9 per cent), pharmaceuticals, (21.1 per cent), and electrical (45.8 per cent).

The items that registered positive growth were cotton cloth (15.6 per cent), and cotton yarn (1.9 per cent) in the textiles group; vegetable ghee (13.6 per cent); cooking oil (22.9 per cent) and sugar (14.8 per cent) in the food, beverages and tobacco groups; nitrogenous fertilizer (3.3 per cent) and soda ash (3.1 per cent) in the chemical group, cement (13.7 per cent) in the non- metallic mineral products group and jeeps & cars (63.5 per cent) and LCV's (5.6 per cent) in the automobile group.

The individual items exhibiting negative growth include; motor tubes (10 per cent), buses (2 per cent), wheat thresher (21.1 per cent), electric motors (10.6 per cent) and H. sheets (3.7 per cent).

The output of the mining and quarrying sector has remained flat against 16.1 per cent growth last year. The value added in crude oil decreased by 1 per cent while in the case of natural gas it rose by 16.2 per cent. However, the value addition in coal decreased by 2 per cent. The principal minerals, which have shown positive growth include; barite (3.5 per cent), limestone (1.4 per cent), fire clay (21 per cent), rock salt (14.9 per cent), sulphur (7.5 per cent) and silica sand (34.7 per cent). Negative growth was exhibited by soap stone (-3.9 per cent), dolomite (-1 per cent), and china clay (-20 per cent).

Foreign direct investment has witnessed an increase of 9.3 per cent in the first ten months (July-April, 2003-04), whereas, net foreign investment stood at $629.1 million against $694.5 million last year, showing a decline of 9.4 per cent.

The decline in foreign private investment is because of the outflow of $131.3 million in portfolio investment during this period against an outflow of $1.4 million in the comparable period last year.

The rise of 9.3 per cent in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is attributed to inflows in three sectors, namely, mining, quarrying and oil & gas; transport & communication and finance.

The group-wise break-up shows that the financial business has accounted for the largest slice of FDI at 31.3 per cent followed by 22.3 per cent in mining & oil and gas exploration. The power sector accounted for a mere 2 per cent in FDI.

As far as a country-wise break-up is concerned, the inflows from Switzerland accounted for 31.9 per cent followed by the the United States (27.2 per cent), the UK (12 per cent), the UAE (8.6 per cent) and Saudi Arabia (5 per cent).

The privatization programme maintained its pace during 2003- 04 and succeeded in privatizing some high ticket items despite an inhospitable global environment. By end-March 2004, Pakistan had completed or approved 139 transactions with gross proceeds of Rs134.4 billion.

Of this, an amount of Rs33.1 billion was received during July-March 2003-04 from the sale of the government's shareholding in OGDCL, NBP, POL, ARL, DG Khan Cement, SSGC, Thatta Cement, 51 per cent GOP stake in HBL, Associated Cement, Rohri and 10 per cent shares of Kurram Chemicals.