Pakistan’s economy is facing
mounting pressures from ever rising inflation, food prices, the acute power
shortages, a bewildering stock market, a perceptible slow down in the
manufacturing and services sectors a sharp increase in interest rates, and
widening current account deficit. The inflation rate as measured by the charges
in consumer price index CPI stood 25%. The food inflation is estimated as 31.2%
and non food inflation as 19.2%. Food inflation is still quite high and is
attributable to the increase in prices of edible oil, pulses, rice, milk, sugar,
poultry, meat, wheat, wheat flour, fresh vegetables and fruits. The non food
inflation is also very high because of hike in petroleum prices leading to spurt
in transport group and house gent index.
The textile industry which has remains the major driver of export growth once
again depicted sluggish performance and it registered growth negatively. Thus,
the share of textile sector has declined from 60.4%. We still need to look into
the structural problems of the textile industry. Where as our imports reached to
19.1 billion. The current growth in imports outstrips exports expansion, could
draw down and dampen GDP growth. Pakistan needs more measures to cut its
petroleum imports either through looking into alternative fuel sources or demand
management. The import of edible also needs to be looked into carefully and may
be given priority for domestic substitution