akistan’s fiscal situation remains precarious. This has led to discussions on viable strategies to navigate the country out of this crisis. Despite the ongoing dialogue, no consensus solution has emerged. As elections are around the corner, political parties have yet to engage in a substantive debate to present their economic agendas to the public.

The fiscal constraints have been exacerbated by the restrictions imposed by the International Monetary Fund through various covenants and performance criteria. Seeing little fiscal leeway, experts are emphasising the importance of adhering to financial discipline and implementing fundamental reforms as the crucial path for Pakistan to embark on a sustainable reform journey.

The National Accounts Committee recently released revised GDP growth projections for the fiscal year 2022-23, making a downward revision from the initial estimate of 0.29 percent to minus (-) 0.17 percent. According to the revised figures, the industrial sector witnessed a further decline in growth, dropping from -2.94 percent to -3.76 percent.

This contraction is attributed to decreases in large scale manufacturing from -7.98 percent to -9.87 percent and construction from -5.53 percent to -9.16 percent. Similarly, the services sector experienced a decline in growth, falling from 0.86 percent to 0.07 percent. Various sub-sectors within services contributed to this downturn, including transportation and storage (from 4.73 percent to 3.27 percent), information and communication (from 6.93 percent to -2.55 percent), finance and insurance (from -3.82 percent to -8.09 percent), public administration and social security (from -7.76 percent to -8.99 percent) and education (from 10.44 percent to 9.94 percent).

The current predicament can be largely attributed to ad........

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