National Accounts Committee begins talks on FY25 growth target

May 21, 2024 (MLN): The National Accounts Committee has convened its meeting today in which it is likely to set the growth target for Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25), sources close to the matter disclosed.

The primary purpose of the meeting is to review and approve the economic performance statistics for the ongoing financial year. 

The results of the meeting will gauge the growth witnessed in agriculture, industry, and services, the three sectors within the economy.

Moreover, it will also discuss the ongoing fiscal year's key macroeconomic target.

It is worth mentioning that Pakistan launched new Quarterly National Accounts (QNA) on November 28, 2023, which is a landmark development in the nation’s macroeconomic statistics program and reflects a significant leap forward for short-term economic policy responses.

Yesterday, World Bank commended this initiative and highlighted its support in a recent blog post.

The quarterly data are a response to user demand for more frequent and up-to-date information on Pakistan’s economy and will enable more timely and impactful decision-making, it said.

This first release for Pakistan included quarterly estimates of gross value added (GVA) by industry and quarterly GDP in current and constant prices, consistent with the most recent published annual GDP estimates.

These new quarterly data can be used to track the performance of each industry, to identify the main contributors to overall economic growth, and to provide early, robust estimates of the annual GDP for Pakistan.

This dataset is crucial for timely measuring of the impact of economic shocks and understanding dynamic relationships between different aspects of the economy, particularly in periods of high inflation or significant changes in relative prices.

These QNAs provide a more comprehensive picture of economic trends than specific short-term indicators can offer since they are compiled within a comprehensive and integrated national accounts framework.

The QNA data can indicate, for example, whether a decrease in output is the result of internal or external demand, in addition to identifying the industries impacted. 

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