The Economic Survey’s relevance, limited to data analysis, is neither up to date (limited to July-March or for nine months for most indicators even though monthly data for another two months is available on Finance Division and Pakistan Bureau of Statistics websites) nor unbiased as it has a penchant for supporting the ruling administration’s policies which renders the annual exercise of presenting it amidst much fanfare by the Finance Minister a day before the budget, meaningless and redundant.

In years when there is an administration change, the outgoing team laments a reverse bias, however this time around there is clearly an overt bias in favour of the Caretakers perhaps as the caretaker finance minister’s tenure - 17 August 2023 to 3 March 2024 - formed the major period under consideration by the Survey team.

Political pundits however claim that this strengthens the general perception that all the key stakeholders, civilian and military, were firmly on board in the selection of the caretaker economic team leaders as there was widespread acknowledgement that Pakistan’s economic recovery merited top priority.

This bias is indicated in the observation that the “Government’s dedicated efforts to complete 2023 Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) have yielded significant progress in reinstating economic stability.” The stability is evident when compared to the low base of last year which may explain why the Survey cleverly focuses on........

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