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Pakistan sets GDP target at 5.5 pct for new financial year

Xinhua, June 5, 2015 Adjust font size:

Pakistani Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said on Thursday that the country's economic growth in the upcoming financial year would rise to 5.5 percent from the current 4.2 percent.

Dar on Thursday released the Economic Survey, a pre-budget document that has recorded the GDP growth rate at 4.2 percent during the current financial year. Pakistan's financial year ends on June 30.

The target in the current financial year had been set as 5.1 percent; however, the target was missed.

"Our GDP target for the new financial year of 2015-16 is 5.5 percent. The target for 2016-17 will be 6 percent," Dar said at a news conference.

The minister will present the third budget of the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the parliament on Friday.

Launching the survey in Islamabad, the minister said the inflation rate is expected to close below 5 percent by the end of this financial year.

There has been a 16 percent increase in remittances by overseas Pakistanis in the first 10 months of this year as against the same period of last year, according to the Economic Survey.

Foreign investment in the first 10 months of the year was 2.6 billion U.S. dollars as against 3.11 billion U.S. dollars during the same period of last year.

Foreign exchange reserves stood at 16.73 billion U.S. dollars on Wednesday and are expected to cross 17 billion U.S. dollars on June 5.

Per capita income now is 1,513 U.S. dollars as against 1,384 U. S. dollars in June last year, the survey says.

The minister expressed the confidence that the revised tax collection target of 2,605 billion rupees would be achieved. In the first 10 months of the current financial year, 1,972 billion rupees have been collected so far. Endi