Pakistan’s economy recorded a stable growth rate of 3.07 percent in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2023-24, according to estimates approved by the National Accounts Committee (NAC) on Monday. This growth reflects a mixed performance across various sectors, with agriculture showing significant gains while industry faced challenges.

In Q4, the agriculture sector experienced robust growth of 6.76 percent, driven by a remarkable 14.03 percent increase in crop production. Important crops surged by 26.98 percent, largely due to a strong wheat yield of 31.58 million tons and a low base effect from the previous year, which saw a decline of 7.93 percent.

However, other crops saw a decline of 1.53 percent, attributed to a decrease in fruit production. Livestock grew by 3.98 percent, while forestry experienced a slight contraction of 0.35 percent due to a high base effect from the previous year.

The industrial sector, however, contracted by 3.59 percent. Despite a positive turnaround in large-scale manufacturing, which grew by 4.19 percent compared to a significant decline of 19.5 percent previously, other components such as mining and quarrying (-5.32 percent), electricity, gas, and water supply (-35.57 percent), and construction (-0.47 percent) registered negative growth rates.

The services sector posted a growth of 3.69 percent, buoyed by strong performances in wholesale and retail trade (4.79 percent), transportation and storage (2.11 percent), information and communication (7.95 percent), education (9.04 percent), human health and social work activities (5.86 percent), and other private services (3.38 percent). However, finance and insurance (-2.55 percent) and public administration and social security (-0.18 percent) saw declines.

The NAC also approved revised growth estimates for the first three quarters of FY 2023-24, with GDP growth rates adjusted to 2.69 percent, 1.97 percent, and 2.36 percent for Q1, Q2, and Q3, respectively. The overall GDP growth for FY 2023-24 was updated to 2.52 percent, based on improved data, up from the previous estimate of 2.38 percent.

Additionally, the committee revised the growth rate for FY 2022-23 to -0.22 percent, slightly down from the earlier estimate of -0.21 percent.