HIGHLIGHTS OF PAKISTAN ECONOMIC SURVEY 2013-14 Growth and Investment `
The outgoing year witnessed global recovery as the world economy started picking up in the second half of last year and the global outlook indicates some signs of optimism.
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In South Asia economic performance of Pakistan is improving quantitatively and qualitatively as growth is broad based and touched all sectors of the economy and is the highest achievement since 2008-09.
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China and Pakistan have entered into a comprehensive plan of “economic corridor� between the two nations. It will serve as driver for connectivity between South Asia and East Asia.
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Major success of the outgoing fiscal year includes: picking up economic growth, inflation contained at single digit, improvement in tax collection, reduction in fiscal deficit, achieving of GSP plus status by EU, worker remittances touches new height, successful launching of Euro Bond, auction of long pending 3G and 4G licenses; foreign exchange reserves significantly rise, Rupee strengthened and stock market created new history.
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Government has introduced a comprehensive agenda of reforms which is highly focused on inclusive growth to reinvigorate the economy, spur growth, maintain price stability, provide jobs to the youth and rebuild the key infrastructure of the economy.
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The GDP growth accelerates to 4.14 percent in 2013-14 against the growth of 3.70 percent recorded in the same period last year. The growth momentum is broad based, as all sectors namely agriculture, industry and services have supported economic growth.
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The agriculture sector accounts for 21.0 percent of GDP and 43.7 percent of employment, the sector has strong backward and forward linkages. The agriculture sector has four subsectors including: crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry.
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Agriculture sector recorded a growth of 2.1 percent against the growth of 2.9 percent last year. The decline in its growth was due to drop in cotton production and other minor crops due to extreme weather but somehow compensated by the better output of rice, sugarcane, wheat and maize crops.
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Important crops account for 25.24 percent of agricultural value addition. This sub-sector has recorded a growth of 3.74 percent compared to a growth of 1.19 percent last year. The important crops includes all major crops like wheat, maize, rice, sugarcane and cotton which registered growth at 4.44 percent, 7.27 percent,22.79 percent, 4.27 percent and (-) 2.00 percent respectively.
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Other crops have share of 11.65 percent to value addition in overall agriculture sector. This sub-sector has witnessed growth at (-) 3.53 percent against the growth of 6.05 percent last year. This decline in growth of minor crops is mainly due to 36.8 percent lower production in gram, 7.8 percent less production of Potatoes, 5.1 percent decline in production of masoor and 5.4 percent decrease in other pulses.
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Pakistan is one of the leading producers and consumers of cotton in the world market. Ginning is the procedure for separating lint from the seed to cotton. Cotton Ginning has witnessed a growth of (-) 1.33 percent against the growth of (-) 2.90 percent in the previous year due to reduction of the production of cotton as compared to last year.