Despite the COVID-19 Pandemic, the agriculture sector in the country witnessed about 2.77 percent growth during financial year 2020-21 as against the set target of 2.8 percent, which was mainly attributed to the timely interventions of the government and introduction of financial and policy measures to minimize the impact of global pandemic. The growth of important crops including wheat, rice, sugarcane, maize and cotton during the year registered at 4.65 percent, where as the production of major Kharif crops such as sugarcane, maize and rice indicated considerable improvement, compared to last year and surpassed the production targets, according the Economic Survey of Pakistan launched here on Thursday. The production of sugarcane increased by 22.0 percent and reached 81.009 million tons from 66.380 million tonnes, rice production increased by 13.6 percent to 8.419 million tonnes from 7.414 million tonnes and maize by 7.4 percent to 8.465 million tonnes from 7.883 million tonnes, it added.