Pakistan: GDP grows at 2.09% in 3QFY24

National Accounts Committee (NAC) has released GDP estimates for 3QFY24 which have shown a growth of over 2.09% as compared to a decline of 0.42% recorded in 3QFY23. NAC has also released provisional numbers for full year FY24, suggesting growth rate of 2.38%, largely in line with market expectation of 2.5%.

Sector wise, in 3QFY24, agriculture has registered a growth of 3.94%, industry 3.84% and services 0.83%.

All the constituents of agriculture have contributed positively including important crops (up 2.89% due to wheat), other crops (up 1.14%), cotton ginning (up 61.75%) and livestock (up 4.20%).

Despite negative growth of construction industry (down 15.75%), industrial growth of +3.84% is attributable to mining & quarrying (up 0.63%), large-scale manufacturing (up 1.47%), and electricity, gas and water supply (up 37.3%).

The overall growth in services was positive 0.83% in 3QFY24 albeit having mixed trend in its constituents i.e. wholesale & retail trade (up 0.38%), transport & storage (up 0.91%), information & communication (down 5.92%), finance & insurance activities (down 7.11%), public administration & social security (down 6.38%) and education (10.38%).

NAC has revised upward the 1QFY24 and 2QFY24 GDP growth to 2.71% and 1.79% from earlier estimates of 2.50% and 1.0%, respectively.

This takes 9MFY24 average GDP growth to 2.2% which was in line with the market expectations and higher than Bloomberg survey of 1.8%.

State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) estimates that GDP growth for FY24 is in the range of 2-3% in its half year report released on May 14, 2024.

The IMF, in its country report in May 2024, projected a growth rate of 2.0% for FY24, and the World Bank, in its Apriel 2024 update, projected a GDP growth rate of 1.8% for FY24.