ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan’s government said on Friday it expected a fiscal deficit of 7% of gross domestic product in the 2020-21 financial year as it announced its annual budget amidst a fast-growing coronavirus outbreak.
Minister for Industries Hammad Azhar added that the government had set a GDP growth target of 2.1% for the next fiscal year as he presented the budget in the country’s parliament.
Azhar acknowledged that it was difficult to predict the economic impact of the global coronavirus pandemic. The government’s targets were rosier than the World Bank’s recent projection that Pakistan would see another year of negative growth at -0.2%.
(Reporting by Asif Shahzad and Syed Raza Hassan; Writing by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Alex Richardson)
