–Revenue collection reaches 14.9pc of GDP compared to last year’s 15.1pc; FBR’s tax receipts register 1.8pc growth
–Trade deficit decreases by 7.3pc; fiscal deficit stands at 5.5pc
ISLAMABAD: The government on Monday unveiled the Economic Survey 2018-19 – a report card displaying all economic indicators and how the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf performed in its first year in power amid difficult conditions domestically as well as globally.
As predicted by many economists, the central bank and multilateral lenders, the economic survey revealed that Pakistan’s economy slowed down sharply in the current fiscal year, hitting a nine-year low at 3.3 per cent and missing the 6.2 per cent target by a wide margin.
Major challenges during the current fiscal year 2018-19 ending June 30, were runaway imports and swelling trade and current account deficits.
These put a lot of pressure on the country’s meagre foreign currency reserves, which got some cushion from around $9.2 billion in deposits placed with the State Bank of Pakistan by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and China.
Late in May this year, the government had reached a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan of $6 billion over a period of 39 months. This, along with the deposits placed with the central bank by friendly countries, is expected to help Pakistan meet its payment obligations – import payments and debt servicing – over the next many months.
In the meantime, Pakistan’s rupee has depreciated around 44 per cent since December 2017, resulting in an increase in the debt servicing cost as well as inflationary pressure. Also, a massive challenge for the government was the widening fiscal deficit, fuelled by heavy domestic and foreign borrowing to meet growing expenditures.
The agriculture sector registered a growth rate of 0.85 per cent against the target of 3.8 per cent; industrial sector 1.4 per cent against 7.6 per cent and the services sector 4.7 per cent against 6.5 per cent.
During the outgoing year, the total investments as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) were recorded at 15.4 per cent against the target of 17.2 per cent. The fixed investment as a percentage of GDP remained at 13.8 per cent against the target of 15.6 per cent, while public and private investments remained at 4.0 and 9.8 per cent against the targets of 4.8 and 10.8 per cent respectively.
The National Savings remained at 10.7 per cent of GDP against the target of 13.1 per cent. The consumption growth was recorded at 11.9 per cent against 10.2 per cent growth recorded last year. As a percentage of GDP, it increased to 94.8 per cent as compared to last year’s figure of 94.2 per cent.
On the demand side, the exports declined by 1.9 per cent despite the exchange rate depreciation, while imports declined by 4.9 per cent. It helped in reducing the trade deficit by 7.3 per cent during July-April 2019 while it had shown an expansion of 24.3 per cent during the corresponding period of last year.
The workers’ remittances played a major role in containing current account deficit to 4.03 per cent of GDP. The current account deficit showed a contraction of 27 per cent during July-April of the current year while it had expanded by 70 per cent during the corresponding period of last year.
Meanwhile, the financial sector faced multifaceted challenges over the years due to excessive and unproductive expenditures on one hand and lower tax revenues on the other. Generally, higher current expenditures and lower tax revenues left limited fiscal space for public investment and social safety net. Furthermore, high-interest payments, untargeted subsidies, loss-making PSEs, energy subsidies and security-related issues all weighed on expanding the fiscal deficit.
During the last five years, total revenue as a percentage of GDP on average reached 14.9 per cent, whereas it stood at 15.1 per cent in FY2018. The total expenditures as per cent of GDP on average reached to 20.5 per cent, while during the preceding year FY2018, it was the highest at 21.6 per cent. Resultantly, the fiscal deficit on average stood at 5.5 per cent, while during the last year it was recorded at 6.5 per cent.
During the first nine months July-March CFY2019, consolidated fiscal indicators suggested that total revenue registered zero growth, while growth in total expenditures was 8.7 per cent.
Therefore, fiscal deficit as per cent of GDP was 5.0 per cent as compared to 4.3 per cent during the corresponding period of last year. Total revenue increased to Rs3,583.7 billion (9.3 per cent of GDP) from Rs3,582.4 billion (10.3 per cent of GDP) during the comparable period of last year, showing almost zero growth in comparison of growth of 13.9 per cent during the same period last year.
Decelerated performance of total revenues primarily was due to marginal growth of 1.8 per cent in tax revenues and negative growth of 16.7 per cent in non-tax revenues.
During the period July-April CFY2019, the FBR’s tax receipts remained at Rs2,976.0 billion against Rs2,922.5 billion during the same period of FY2018, registering a growth of 1.8 per cent.
Actual tax collection during the first ten months of CFY remained at 67.7 per cent of the revised target of Rs4,398 billion.
Total expenditures increased to Rs5,506.2 billion (14.3 per cent of GDP) during the first nine months of CFY2019 registering a growth of 8.7 per cent against Rs5,063.3 billion (14.6 per cent of GDP) showing the growth of 15.5 per cent.
Within total expenditures, current expenditures posted a growth of 17.7 per cent to Rs4,798.4 billion (12.4 per cent of GDP) during July-March CFY2019 as compared to Rs4,075.4 billion (11.8 per cent of GDP) in the same period last year. Federal and provincial governments’ current expenditures grew by 19.9 and 13.7 per cent, respectively during the period under review.
On the contrary, development expenditures (excluding net lending) decreased to Rs655.9 billion during July-March CFY2019 against Rs993.3 billion last year, posting negative growth of 34.0 per cent as compared to positive growth of 23.6 per cent recorded last year.
Meanwhile, twin deficits on the fiscal and external front, emerging inflationary pressure and high aggregate demand posed challenges for the economy towards the end of FY2018.
Resultantly, the SBP reversed its policy stance since January 2018 from accommodative to contractionary monetary policy to curb excessive aggregate demand and ensure near-term stability. The policy rate, which had gradually increased by cumulative 650 bps, stood at 12.25 per cent effective from May 21, 2019.
The PSX index increased from 33,229 points as on January 1, 2016, to 38,649 as on March 31, 2019, a rise of 16 per cent. At the start of CFY2019, the market gained some momentum, reaching 43,557 points on July 30, 2018, after which it started moving down, reaching the period’s lowest index at 36,663 points on October 16, 2018.
The CPI witnessed a rising trend during the current financial year. It increased to 5.8 per cent in July 2018 and after remaining sticky at 5 per cent during the following two months increased to 6.8 per cent in October 2018. The spike witnessed in October 2018 was due to an increase in gas prices. The substantial increase of 9.4 per cent was witnessed in March 2019 while in April 2019 it was recorded at 8.8 per cent.