Significant growth witnessed in Tax, IT, agriculture sectors

Islamabad: Despite severe financial constraints and multiple challenges, the incumbent government achieved significant progress in different sectors during the first 11 months of the current fiscal year, laying a foundation to turn around the national economy in the coming days.

According to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2022-23, launched by Minister for Finance Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar, the collection of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) grew by 16.1 percent to Rs. 6,210 billion as compared to Rs5,348.2 billion last year.

Similarly, due to the effective strategy of the government, the current account deficit during July-April FY2023 narrowed down by 76 per cent to $3.3 billion as compared to $13.7 billion last year.

The government managed to contain the trade deficit during July-May FY2023 by 40.4 per cent to $25.8 billion as compared to $43.4 billion last year.

To maintain the foreign exchange reserves, the government restricted imports during July-May FY2023 to $51.2 billion as compared to $72.3 billion last year), reflecting a decline of 29.2 per cent.

The Information Technology sector posted a trade surplus of $1.72 billion in Jul-Mar FY2023, showing an increase of 16.7 per cent compared to the last year.

The government repaid international commercial loans to the tune of $5,541 million, out of which $4,541 million were bank loans and $ 1,000 million was international Sukuk maturity.

The Bureau of Emigration & Overseas Employment registered 8,29,549 workers for overseas employment in CY2022 as compared to 2,86,648 in CY2021 showing an increase of 542,901 workers.

During the period, the country’s agriculture sector witnessed overall 1.55 per cent growth as wheat production increased by 27.63 million tons (MT) by 5.4 percentage, maize production stood at 10.18 MT with 6.9 per cent surge, sugarcane production reached 91.1 MT with 2.8 percent increase, cotton production clocked at 4.91 MT with 41.0 percent increase, rice production remained at 7.32 MT with 21.5 per cent increase and livestock sector grew by 3.78 percent increase.