Pakistan: Govt fudges national accounts to paint rosy economic picture, says report

The Imran Khan government's rebasing of the GDP resulting in a higher growth rate and the economy's expansion has spawned speculations that the government has fudged national accounts to paint a rosy picture and draw political capital, a media report said.

If anyone thought they can use the improved numbers to show that fewer people slept on empty stomachs or the number of unemployed had decreased because of rebasing GDP, they are mistaken. Rebasing doesn't make countries or people richer; it is just about updated data for policymakers to make informed public investment and taxation decisions, reported Dawn.

The GDP rebasing is a process of replacing an old base year with a more recent one -- usually every five years -- to keep pace with price evolution and changes in the economy's structure overtime to capture current economic conditions, said the Pakistani publication.


The calculation of national accounts to FY16 from FY06 has increased the economy's size by almost 16.5 per cent to USD 347 bn and jacked up the FY2021 growth rate from 3.9pc to a 14-year-high of 5.6pc. Even at the old base year, the GDP growth rate was revised up to 5.4pc owing to the incorporation of the final data on industry, agriculture and services.

It came after the 104th meeting of the NAC, chaired by Planning Secretary Abdul Aziz Uqaili, the revised figures of the GDP were approved.

As a result of the rebasing exercise, the growth rate improved from the earlier estimate of 3.94pc to 5.4pc, while the size of the economy rose to USD 346.76 billion from the provisional estimate of USD 296 billion, according to the National Accounts Committee, which approved these figures on Thursday, said Dawn.