IMF slashes Pakistan’s growth outlook to 0.5pc
Hinting at entrenched high inflation, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday lowered its forecast for Pakistan’s economic growth rate for the current fiscal year to just 0.5 per cent, with inflation going beyond 27pc and the unemployment rate increasing to 7pc. This showed an unambiguous deterioration of economic fundamentals over the last six months since October when the Fund forecast the country’s gross domestic product to grow by 3.5pc against 6pc for 2022 ago and inflation at 20pc against 12.1pc last year amid a slowdown in the global economy and devastating effects of floods. Meanwhile, global headline inflation is set to fall from 8.7pc in 2022 to 7pc in 2023 on the back of lower commodity prices, but core inflation — excluding the volatile energy and food components — is likely to decline more slowly, the IMF said. The revision in Pakistan’s growth prospects is in line with similar 0.4pc and 0.6pc projected last week by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, respectively. They also projected inflation at 29.5pc and 27.5pc, respectively, for the current year.