KARACHI:
State Bank of Pakistan has drawn the attention of the government towards its so-called ‘promises’ to increase investments, which weren’t fulfilled, it has been learnt.
“The Annual Plan for fiscal year 2014-15 envisaged better energy supplies, visible increase in investment, political stability and favourable weather conditions. None of these factors could mark a noticeable improvement, which continued to limit economic growth during the year,” said the SBP in its third quarterly report.
The report praised the government for the steps taken by it for improvement of economy, but it also pointed towards some critical issues in its detailed report.
The report disclosed that services sector performed better than last year during the first nine months, but it was all owing to government’s involvement, and not to private sector.
The services sector grew in the current fiscal year because it was mainly pushed by higher salaries and pensions of government servants and growth in financial and insurance sector; it was also because of their investment in government papers.
“Despite lower growth in commodity producing sectors (agriculture and industry), services managed to grow by 5 per cent in the fiscal year 2015, which was higher than 4.4pc of last year. The impetus came from general government services, reflecting an increase in salaries and pensions of government employees,” said the SBP.
