Substantial economic progress made in five years

ISLAMABAD, Apr 26 (APP):Pakistan has made substantial progress in the last five years which is characterized by macroeconomic stability, improved fiscal indicators, low inflation, sustained growth rate, high forex reserves and significant performance of stock market.
According to Pakistan Economic survey, launched here by Advisor to Prime Minister, Miftah Ismail, the economy was caught up in persistent energy shortages, double-digit inflation, low development spending, mounting fiscal deficit, low tax revenues, negative credit to private sector and deteriorating law and order situation.
Nevertheless, the present government took all these challenges head-on and within five years achieved stabilization and higher economic growth.
The economic performance remained strong as growth accelerated significantly to 5.37 percent in FY2017, supported by a broad-based growth in Agriculture, Industrial and Services sectors, while inflation remained well below the target.
The issue of power crises was taken on as a priority which consequently created an improved energy situation thus resulting in Industrial and Services sectors growth.
According to the survey, for FY 2018, the GDP growth is estimated at 5.79 percent (Provisional). This shows that the growth prospects of Pakistan’s economy from FY 2018 onwards are encouraging given that vast infrastructure projects are under implementation along with capacity expansion of industries.
On fiscal side, unprecedented public expenditures and persistently low revenues undermined the stability of the fiscal accounts.
However, during the past five years, this sector has witnessed a notable improvement on account of wide ranging reforms in the area of resource mobilization and expenditure management.
The substantive measures taken in a challenging environment to control unproductive expenditures as well as increasing revenues helped in generating additional fiscal space for expenditure on development and social safety net, it added.