Daily Times

Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that the industrial sector is showing sustained growth, which is good news, adding cumulative growth from July to December last year remained above eight percent.

In a Facebook post on Sunday, the Prime Minister said that large scale manufacturing (LSM) saw another double digit growth of 11.4 percent in December last year as compared to the same month of the previous year. The Prime Minister added the cumulative growth in the first six months of the current fiscal year i.e. from July to December is above eight percent now.

Earlier on February 13, the government cheered the momentous run of large scale manufacturing (LSM) sector consecutively for the six months in December, with industrial units in speed mode to meet a rebound in consumer demand.

LSM, which makes 80 percent of the industrial sector in Pakistan, posted 8.16 percent growth in the first half of the current fiscal year and grew 11.4 percent year on year in December and 13.5 percent over November, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

“Robust growth trends of large scale manufacturing have continued in December,” Hammad Azhar, minister for industries and production wrote on Twitter.

In July-December, all the three data collection authorities registered an increase in production. The Ministry of industries, measuring output trend of 36 items, recorded a 6.23 percent increase in production. Provincial bureau of statistics, counting production of 65 products, logged 1.63 percent growth. Oil Companies Advisory Council, logging outputs of 11 oil and petroleum products, measured growth of 0.29 percent year-on-year.

The government was expecting contraction in the current fiscal year when the coronavirus crisis rocked the economy that was trying to recover. LSM contracted 10.2 percent last fiscal year. Overall, the manufacturing sector shrank 2.6 percent in FY2020 as shutdowns and supply chain disruptions related to Covid-19 exacerbated other adverse factors affecting the sector since FY2019. The production in July-December 2020-21 as compared to July-December 2019-20 increased in textile, food, beverages and tobacco, coke and petroleum products, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, non-metallic mineral products, automobiles, fertilisers and paper and paperboard while it decreased in electronics, leather products and engineering products, said the PBS.