The GDP finally rebased
By Ariba Shahid and Asad Ullah Kamran
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he National Accounts Committee has revised the GDP growth rate for FY21 to 5.4% from 3.9% as per provisional estimates, the highest in 14 years. In addition, the NAC has also approved rebasing GDP on 2015-2016 prices. This means that the previous GDP statistics were underestimated by around Rs 1.3 trillion or 11.3%. The GDP size has increased to $346.7
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billion in FY 21 compared to $298 billion stated earlier. This ranks Pakistan at 35th position in terms of world economies As a result, the per capita income of the country has risen to $1,666 compared to $1,543; while the public debt to GDP ratio has reduced to 72% from 84%. The tax to GDP ratio has worsened going down to 9.5% compared to the earlier communicated 11%. The fiscal deficit has improved by 1% bringing it to 6.1%. The value of the economy was estimated at Rs 27.4 trillion in 2015-16. That has now increased to Rs 30.5 trillion as per the Plan-
ning Ministry. What this means is the total goods and services produced in the economy in FY21 is now estimated at Rs 55.5 trillion. Despite the rebasing, the GDP clocking in at $356.7 billion is still lower than $257 billion witnessed in 2017-18.
What is GDP rebasing?
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very few years, the GDP of a country is rebased to keep up with the evolution of prices in the economy. It is the process of replacing an old base year with a more recent base year. What this means is aggregates at constant prices are
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