ISLAMABAD: Despite several challenges, the prudent strategy adopted by the incumbent government helped achieve the macroeconomic stability and now the economy is on a growth trajectory as suggested by many economic indicators.
According to official sources, foreign reserves is one of the main indicators and the total liquid reserves held by the country stood at US$ 23.183 billion as on January 09, 2017.
The production in the Large Scale Manufacturing sector increased by 3.24 in July-November FY 2017, by growing from 121.94 points last year to 125.90 points during the first five months of the current fiscal year, official sources said.
The worker remittances received during July-December FY 2017 amounted to US$ 9,459 million, the source added.
The performance of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) remained around 7 percent for the six-month period ended in December 2016.
“This reflects catching up of the shortfall experienced in the initial months, largely on account of giving relief to consumers on petroleum prices together with sales tax refunds of Rs 45 billion,” the sources added.
On the expenditure side, the performance was on track as expenditure was allowed in a prudent manner in accordance with the budget, and keeping in view the revenue growth, they added.
The sources said that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth also appears to be on an upward trajectory.
The inflation also remained in single digit. The headline inflation measured by Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 3.7 percent in December 2016 compared to 3.8 percent of the previous month and 3.2 percent of December last year.
On average, during Jul-Dec FY 2017, it was recorded at 3.88 percent as compared to 2.08 percent in the corresponding period last year.
On monthly basis, the CPI and food inflation remained lowest by 0.7 percent and 1.9 percent since February 2015.
The inflation recorded continuous six-week decline which has brought food inflation to 3.0 percent in December 2016 compared to 3.3 percent of previous month while non-food inflation remained at same level of previous month at 4.2 percent, whereas core inflation increased by 5.2 percent compared to 5.3 percent of previous months and Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) and Wholesale Price Index (WPI) in December 2016 recorded at 0.5 percent and 3.1 percent respectively, compared to 0.6 percent and 2.6 percent of previous month.
The worker remittances received during July-December FY 2017 amounted to US$ 9,459 million.
The government expects to achieve remittance target of $20 billion during the current year.
Meanwhile, there has been a decline in merchandise trade as the deficit in first five months of the current fiscal year rose nearly 20 percent year-on-year to $11.775 billion compared to the corresponding period of last year.
