The State Bank claimed in its annual report issued yesterday that the fiscal year 2013-14 (FY14) was a better year for macro-economy, but the figures cited also showed that most of the targets set for the year could not be achieved, except the fiscal deficit which remained lower than the target.
But the report also indicated that the government had artificially managed to bring down the fiscal deficit to 5.5 per cent as it did not pay the amount due in FY14.
“The government did not settle the circular debt of about Rs235 billion in FY14. It treated a one-off grant of Rs157bn as a statistical discrepancy which reduced the overall deficit by the same amount. In effect, just these two factors account for a 1.5 percentage point reduction in the fiscal deficit,” the report said.
“If we add to this the recovery of Rs56bn from public sector enterprises (as mark-up on loans extended earlier) following the settlement of circular debt in July 2013, and the one-off utilisation of Rs 67.7bn from the Universal Service Fund (USF), the fiscal gap increases to 7.5pc of GDP,” the SBP said.
The real GDP growth was 4.1pc against the target of 4.4pc – agriculture 2.1pc against the target of 3.8pc and services 4.3pc against 4.6pc and inflation 8.6pc against 8pc.
