Economic Survey for the fiscal year 2019-20 reveals 73% decline in current account deficit
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ISLAMABAD-The Economic Survey for 2019-20 reveals seventy three percent decline in current account deficit, bringing it down from 20 billion dollars to three billion dollars.
The survey was launched by Advisor on Finance Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh at a news conference in Islamabad today (Thursday).
The Advisor said fiscal deficit has been curtailed to four percent of the GDP from 5.1 percent of previous year.
Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said due to the negative impact of COVID-19, the growth rate remained 0.4 percent against the estimated 3 percent.
Giving a break up, the adviser said the agriculture sector recorded strong growth of 2.67 percent considerably higher than 0.58 percent growth achieved during the last year.
The provisional growth in industrial sector has been estimated at minus two point six four percent mainly due to the negative growth of 8.82 percent in mining and quarrying sector and decline of 7.78 percent in large scale manufacturing sector. Due to lockdown situation in the country, the growth estimates of small scale industry for the outgoing fiscal year are 1.52 percent.
The services sector has declined provisionally at 0.59 percent mainly due to 3.42 percent decline in wholesale and retail trade sector and 7.13 percent decline in transport, storage and communication sectors.
Finance and insurance sector witnessed a slight increase of 0.79 percent.