ISLAMABAD: The National Accounts Committee (NAC) said on Tuesday that Pakistan’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has posted modest increase of 2.09 % during the 3rd quarter of the current financial year 2023-24. The Committee said it following its 109th meeting that held at the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics headquarters in Islamabad.
The meeting revised upward estimates for Q1 and Q2 of 2023-24, taking them to 2.71% and 1.79%, respectively. It had earlier estimated these figures to be 2.50% and 1.0%, respectively, in the 108th meeting of the National Account Committee.
During Q3 of the current financial year, growth in industry, agriculture, and services stood at 3.84%, 3.94%, and 0.83%, respectively, the Committee said.
“During Q3, all the constituents of agriculture sector have contributed positively e.g. important crops (2.89% due to wheat), other crops (1.14%), livestock (4.20%) and cotton ginning (61.75%).
“Despite negative growth of the construction industry (-15.75%), the industrial increase of 3.84% is attributable to mining and quarrying (0.63%), large-scale manufacturing (1.47%), and electricity, gas and water supply (37.3%).
The statement of the Committee said that the overall growth in services is positive during Q3 2023-24 albeit having mixed trend in its constituents i.e. wholesale and retail trade (0.38%), transport and storage (0.91%), information and communication (-5.92%), finance and insurance activities (-7.11%), public administration and social security (-6.38%) and education (10.38%).
As per NAC, the revised growth in agriculture during Q1 remained stable at 8.59% against 8.58% presented earlier, the growth in Q2 improved from 5.02% to 5.83% mainly due to upward revisions in important crops (from 8.12% to 12.92%) and other crops (from -0.31% to 0.65%).
