A Pakistani economics professor feels that the Pakistan government's projected 3.94 percent growth in GDP during times of COVID-19 crisis might be "fudged".

In his opinion piece published in Pakistan Today, Dr. Sami Ullah, Assistant Professor in Economics, University of Gujrat in Punjab, Pakistan wrote: "From the last couple of days, the majority of masses in Pakistan are discussing emotionally the 3.94 percent growth in GDP during the times of crisis. Every layman is talking on economic indicators based on their political attachment, not based on technical grounds.

"I have listened to many talks and also gone through the articles, but the majority are reacting according to their political affiliation."

"Data and empirics have their own behaviour and before talking on this aspect, there is a dire need to know about the behaviour of variables, environment, structure of the economy and even to compare it with some of the neighbours," he wrote.

"The other day, I was sitting in a barber’s shop and the barber argued it was not possible to show an exaggerated number of GDP growth when there was a lockdown and unemployment was increasing rapidly, and there was also an increase in vulnerability and poverty. He thought that all these numbers were fudged and not in line with reality," the professor. who has worked in the Ministry of Finance in the Pakistan government, wrote in his column. 

He said Pakistan's GDP projection is far behind India or Bangladesh.

"As far as the GDP growth of 3.94 percent is concerned, technically it is not too exaggerated, because the National Accounts Committee (NAC) measures GDP annually by comparing it with previous year performance based on the data and team of experts," he said.

"Everyone knows that last financial year was stuck in a lockdown which had minimized all sorts of economic activities and reduced the GDP to minus 0.4 percent in 2019-2020. Due to this low GDP growth of the previous year, currently our economic activities have recovered and the majority of the sectors are working as per routine," he wrote.(SAM)