Manufacturing posts weakest growth in decade

ISLAMABAD - Overall manufacturing posted a growth of 5.4 per cent during the first nine months of the current fiscal year 2007-08 against the target of 10.9 per cent and 8.1 per cent of last year, which is weakest growth in a decade.
The main reasons for weakest growth are as heightened political tension, deteriorating law and order, growing power shortages, cumulative impact of monetary tightening and rising cost of doing business.
Large-scale manufacturing, accounting for 69.5pc of overall manufacturing registered a growth of 4.8pc in the current fiscal year 2007-08 against the target of 12.5pc and last year's achievement of 8.6pc. The manufacturing sector in the country still revolves around the traditional low value added Industries, whose share in world trade is continuously declining. The main contributors to this growth of 4.8pc in July-March 2007-08 over last year are pharmaceuticals (30.7pc), wood products (21.9pc), engineering products (19.5pc), food & beverages (11.1pc).
Petroleum products (6.03pc) and chemical (3.1pc). Individual items displaying positive growth are: cotton cloth (4.8pc).  Cotton yarn (3.3pc) in the textile group; cooking oil (1.1pc), sugar (33.9pc) and cigarettes (5.1pc) in the food, beverages and tobacco group; cement (17.9pc) in the non-metallic mineral products group and buses (32.0pc), LCV's (16.4pc) and motorcycles (28.06pc) in the automobile group.  A few groups showing decline in production are: fertilizers (16.89pc), electronics (4.6pc), paper & paper board (5.5pc) and iron & steel products (7.6pc).
The individual items exhibiting negative growth include; cars & jeeps (3.9pc), phosphate fertilizer (24.0pc) and billets (20.6pc). According to statistics, TV sets has shown a marked increase by posting a growth of 19.3pc during the year under review.  Similarly, the production of buses in the country has Increased from 21.2pc during the last fiscal year to a healthy 32.0pc in FY08.  Production in 42 reporting units comprising of printing, writing packing, paper board and chip board units declined by 5.6pc during July -March 2007-08. The shortage of raw material such as wheat, straw etc. is the basic reason of this break in production LD trade is continuously declining in 2007-08.