PM presents report card of PML-N performance over 5 years

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Monday said economy performed significantly better in almost all respects during the last five years as compared to what the present government inherited in 2013.

Flanked by Minister for Finance Miftah Ismail and Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb, the premier was briefing reporters about the PML-N government’s economic performance during its five-year term.

He said GDP growth was just 3.68% in 2013 which has gone up to 5.79% this year. In dollar terms, the GDP stood at 231 billion dollars in 2013 and today it is 313 billion dollars.

He said industrial growth in 2013 was 0.75% against today’s 5.8%. Growth in large-scale manufacturing in first nine months of 2012-13 was 3.53% which is 5.89% in the comparable period this year.

The prime minister said construction sector grew eight times as compared to 2013; service sector growth went up from 5.13% in 2013 to 6.43% this year. Agriculture growth in 2013 was 2.86% in 2013, which is now 3.81%.

He said in 2013 credit availability was 259 billion rupees and with three time growth it is 736 billion rupees now.

He said wheat production went up from 24.21 million to 25.49 million tonnes; rice 5.54 million tonnes to 7.44 million tonnes, maize from 4.22 million  to 5.7 million ronnes, and sugarcase 63.75 million tonnes to 81.1 million tonnes. Cotton production in 2013 was 13.03 million bales, which went down to 11.94 million bales.

Abbasi said inflation in 2013 was 7.75% which has come down to 3.77% now.

He acknowledged that there were challenges in the export sector as exports in 2013 stood at 20.55 billion dollar, then came down for various reasons and now again picked up to 20.6 billion dollars for 2017-18.

He said imports in 2013 stood at 33.4 billion dollar and now these stood at 44.6 billion dollar due to hike in oil price in the international market and import of machinery for developmental projects including those under CPEC.