• Major crops down 13.5pc amid water crisis, restricting agriculture and overall GDP growth
• Industry, services underperform; large-scale manufacturing struggles for third straight year
• Inflation drops to 4.6pc, a 60-year low, amid declining interest rates
• Finance czar calls it ‘a gradual recovery’, promises ‘turnaround’ next year
• GDP growth reaches 2.68pc, missing 3.56pc target

ISLAMABAD: “Next year will be a turnaround story,” Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb promised on Monday as he unveiled the Pakistan Economic Survey 2024-25 (PES) document, which highlighted widespread slippages across major sectors of the economy in the outgoing fiscal year.

Reviewing the economy report card, the finance minister suggested that Pakistan’s performance should be evaluated in a global context rather than a historical one.

He stated that while global economic growth has been on a declining trend, expanding 3.5pc in 2023, 3.3pc in 2024, and 2.8pc in 2025, Pakistan had progressed from a contraction of 0.2pc in 2023 to 2.5pc growth in 2024, with a further rise to almost 2.7pc this year.

“This is gradual recovery, and the right way to ensure sustainable growth,” he insisted, adding that no one wanted a return to the boom-and-bust cycles of the past.

The current year’s GDP growth will clock in at 2.68pc; well short of the 3.56pc target, although slightly improved from last year’s 2.5pc. It is below the five-year average of around 3.3pc, and well below Pakistan’s long-term average of over 4.5pc.

Mr Aurangzeb noted that global inflation stood........

© Dawn Business