Daily Times

The National Accounts Committee (NAC) held its annual meeting the other day and declared the revised Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at 6.10 percent for the year at 2021-22, which was provisionally estimated at 5.97 percent.

“The final growth rate of GDP for the year 2021-22 has been estimated at 5.77 % which was 5.74 % in the revised estimates. The revised growth rate of GDP for the year 2021-22 is 6.10% which was provisionally estimated at 5.97 %,”, said a news release on Thursday.

In the revised estimates, the NAC observed that the agriculture sector slightly declined from 4.40% to 4.27%, despite improvement in crops sub-sector (from 6.58 % to 8.19 %) due to livestock (decreased from 3.26% to 2.25%) and forestry (from 6.13% to 4.07%).

The 106th meeting of NAC reviewed the final, revised and provisional estimates of GDP for the years 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23, respectively. “The provisional GDP estimates for the year 2021-22 and revised GDP estimates for the year 2020-21 presented in the 105th meeting of the NAC held in May 2022 have been updated on the basis of latest available data,” it added.

The industrial sector has slightly declined from 7.19 % to 6.83 % in the revised estimates due to decrease in electricity, gas and water supply (from 7.86% to 3.14%). However, growth in Large Scale Manufacturing improved from 10.48% to 11.90%.

The services sector has improved from 6.19% to 6.59% due to wholesale and retail trade (from 10.04% to 10.32%), information & communication (from 11.90% to 16.32%), finance & insurance (from 4.93% to 7.18%), public administration and social security (from -1.23% to 1.81% ), and other private services (from 3.76% to 4.77%).

The provisional growth rate of GDP for the year 2022-23 is estimated at 0.29%. The growth of the agricultural, industrial and services sectors has been estimated at 1.55%, -2.94% and 0.86% respectively. In the agriculture sector, provisional growth in important crops is -3.20% due to decrease in production of Cotton (41% from 8.33 to 4.91 million bales) and Rice (21.5% from 9.32 to 7.32 million tons).

However, positive growth has been observed in wheat (5.4% from 26.208 to 27.634 million tons), sugarcane (2.8% from 88.65 to 91.11 million tons) and Maize (6.9% from 9.52 to 10.183 million tons). Other crops have posted a modest growth of 0.23% due to slight increase in production of pulses, vegetables, fodder, oil seeds, and fruits. The provisional growth in livestock, forestry and fishing is 3.78%, 3.93% and 1.44% respectively.

The provisional growth in industrial sector is -2.94%. The growth in mining and quarrying is -4.41% due to decline in production of natural gas, crude oil, and exploration cost.

Large Scale Manufacturing driven by QIM has posted a negative growth of 7.98% due to food (-8.71%), tobacco (-23.78%), textile (-16.03%), coke and petroleum products (-10.24%), chemicals (-6.29%), pharmaceuticals (-23.20%), fertilizers (-9.54%), non-metalic products which includes cement (-10.75%), iron & steel products (-4.02%), electrical equipment (-11.15%) automobiles (-46.01%) and other transport equipment (-38.91%).

Electricity, gas and water industry shows a growth of 6.03% mainly due to higher output reported by the sources. The value added in construction industry, mainly driven by construction related expenditures by industries, has registered a negative growth of 5.53% mainly due to conservative reporting of construction related expenditure by private as well as public sector enterprises and unusual increase in relevant deflator including WPI building material.

The provisional growth in services sector shows a slow growth of 0.86% but with mixed trend within the industries. Wholesale and Retail Trade industry declined by -4.46% due to decline in the output of crops (-4.57%), LSM (-8.11%) and imports (-12.68%).

Transportation and Storage industry has increased by 4.73% whereas accommodation and food services activities have grown by 4.11%. Information and communication increased by 6.93% due to increase in telecommunication.

Finance and insurance industry shows an overall decrease of -3.82% mainly due to high CPI based deflator (26%). Real estate activities grew by 3.72% while public administration and social security (general government) activities posted a negative growth of 7.76% due to high deflator. Education has witnessed a growth of 10.44% due to public sector expenditure. Human health and social work activities also increased by 8.49% due to general government.