Budget 2023-24: National Accounts Committee meeting postponed

• NAC may be rescheduled for Friday, PBS yet to issue notification.
• Sources say efforts underway to turn possible negative growth figures into positive.
• Latest census data might also be incorporated for calculating the provisional numbers.

ISLAMABAD: With only a few days left for the coalition government to table the Finance Bill 2023-24, the National Accounts Committee (NAC) meeting scheduled for Thursday (today) has been postponed, The News reported.

According to the publication, the decision to postpone has been apparently taken on the pretext that some census data will be incorporated in the calculation of the provisional numbers.

However, sources informed The News that efforts were underway to turn the possible negative growth figures into positive despite witnessing a steep fall in the large-scale manufacturing (LSM) output in March whereby it contracted by 25%. 

During the first 10 months (July-March) of the fiscal year 2022-23, the LSM dropped by 8.1%. 

There are some more concerning developments as the initial estimates suggest that the finalised figure of GDP growth for the last financial year went up from the provisional figure of 5.97% to finalised figure of 6.5% for 2021-22 so the revised GDP growth figure would also result in showing more declining figure of provisional growth in the outgoing financial year 2022-23. 

The sources said that as there was a higher base it would negatively affect the provisional growth prospects for the outgoing fiscal year.

“The latest estimates suggest that the provisional GDP growth is negative so far in the range of -0.8% to -1% for the current fiscal year 2022-23,” the sources said, adding that it could not be yet ascertained how the provisional GDP growth figures would be turned into positive. 

The NAC may be rescheduled for Friday (tomorrow), but the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has not yet issued an official notification on the NAC meeting. 

However, an official told the publication that on the request of the PBS, the NAC meeting was rescheduled for Friday because the latest census data might be incorporated for calculating the provisional GDP growth figures and the per capita income in both rupee and dollar terms.

Pakistan envisaged GDP growth target of 5% for the current financial year 2022-23 on the eve of the budget with the help of the following growth targets:

• Agriculture — 3.9%, 
• Manufacturing — 7.1% 
• Services — 5.1% 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank had projected a downward revision of GDP growth in the range of 0.5% for the current fiscal year. 

The Ministry of Finance had projected a growth rate of 0.8% in its revised estimates for the current financial year. 

The agriculture sector growth may also remain negative and it will solely depend on wheat production. Among the services sector, the credit to the private sector witnessed a new low as the private sector credit from banks stood at just Rs72 billion so far in the current fiscal year against Rs800 billion in the same period of the last financial year.

The wholesale and retail trade might also witness declining trends, keeping in view imports compression. On the eve of the budget for the outgoing fiscal year 2022-23, the government had envisaged a GDP growth rate of 5% and inflation at 11.5%. 

Now the average consumer price index-based inflation is expected to hover around 29-30% on average for the current fiscal year.