Critical Review of the Pakistan Economic Survey 2024-25

Good news or you gotta go bald?

Why This Matters—And Why We Didn’t Pull Punches

Every June, Islamabad releases its Pakistan Economic Survey; the government’s own scorecard of how the economy performed and where it is headed. Too often, the headlines focus on celebratory sound-bites (“historic low inflation,” “record remittances”) while the tougher questions: sustainability of the fiscal path, debt-rollover risk, energy-sector arrears, get buried in the footnotes.

The analysis that follows isn’t a summary; it’s a stress-test. We stacked the Survey’s marquee claims against independent data from the IMF, State Bank of Pakistan, and global newswires, then drilled into what the numbers leave unsaid. The goal: help investors, policymakers, and finance professionals separate durable gains from optical victories created by import compression or one-off windfalls.

Read on if you want:

• a line-by-line fact-check of growth, inflation, fiscal balance, and external accounts;

• a reality check on whether “primary surplus” and “current-account surplus” actually mean long-term stability;

• a spotlight on the blind spots—circular debt, climate risk, SOE reform that could upend the optimistic narrative.

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Spoiler: there are genuine improvements, but the road ahead is narrower than the press releases suggest. Dive into the full critique below to see why.

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1 | Tone & Framing

The document is written in a celebratory register—“historic,” “record-low,” “unprecedented”—which risks overstating progress while downplaying remaining vulnerabilities. A more balanced official survey would normally juxtapose achievements with risk factors (energy arrears, looming external debt roll-overs, climate shocks). That context is largely absent.

2 | Cross-checking Headline Claims

Claim in Survey	Independent Evidence	Assessment
Real-GDP growth 2.68 % (FY-25)	Reuters cites 2.7 % in the pre-budget briefing, almost identical.	Plausible, but still below population growth ≈ 2.0 %—implying flat GDP per capita.
CPI inflation 0.3 % YoY in Apr-25; average 4.7 %	PBS press release confirms 0.28 % YoY for April. pbs.gov.pk  IMF staff, however, project ≈ 5 % average and 6.5 % end-period.	Figure is technically correct, but the text omits the one-off high-base effect and ignores core inflation still near 9–12 %. The “six-decade low” headline is therefore misleading.
Primary surplus 3.0 % of GDP (Jul-Mar)	IMF review reports 2.0 % for H1 and a full-year target of 2.1 %.	Apparent over-statement; likely driven by one-off SBP dividend & petroleum levy. Sustainability is questionable.
Current-account surplus US$ 1.9 bn (Jul-Apr)	SBP MPS validates the same number.	True, but achieved through import compression rather than export surge (goods deficit actually widened 12 %). Survey downplays this nuance.
Policy rate cut to 11 %	SBP MPS of 5 May confirms.	Factually correct. Survey omits that real rates remain positive because disinflation may prove transitory.
KSE-100 at ≈ 117,800 (Mar-25) & +50 % FYTD	PSX close 116,901 on 30 May; trend broadly consistent.	Accurate, but elevated equity prices partly reflect negative real returns on other assets and do not signify broad-based investment recovery.

3 | Data-Quality & Methodological Concerns

1. Inflation base year switch.  CPI rebasing to 2021-22 weights lowers the YoY reading by ~1–2 ppts versus the 2015-16 series, yet the Survey never discloses this caveat—key for international comparability.

   
   

2. Investment ratio (13.8 % of GDP).  The briefing labels this “better,” but South-Asia peers average 25–30 %. At 13-14 % Pakistan cannot sustain >4 % trend growth, contradicting the Survey’s medium-term aspirations.

   
   

3. Debt stock narration.  A headline total debt figure (Rs 76 tr) is given without the debt-to-GDP ratio (≈ 74 %), nor any stress scenario. Interest costs already consumed 63 % of FBR tax receipts in FY-24; the Survey buries this in footnotes.

   
   

4. Fiscal “surplus” in Q1.  The text cites a fiscal surplus of Rs 1.896 trn but fails to explain that it was driven by delayed PSDP releases and extraordinary SBP profit transfers—non-recurring items.

   
   

5. External accounts.  Emphasis on remittance records obscures a 22 % fall in machinery imports—signaling depressed investment. Financial-account outflow (-US$ 1.6 bn) is flagged but not analyzed.

4 | Missing or Under-explained Risks

Omitted Issue	Why It Matters
Energy-sector circular debt (> Rs 2.6 trn)	Continues to erode fiscal space; no credible reduction path outlined.
Climate-related loss & damage	Mentioned only in PR terms; no costing or fiscal buffers despite back-to-back flood events since 2022.
SOE reform timetable	IMF review cites the need for accelerated SOE reforms; Survey provides no KPIs.
Roll-over risk in FY-26 (US$ 25 bn external amortizations)	Debt maturity profile section lists ATM but omits upcoming bullet payments.

5 | Overall Verdict

Positive signals are real—single-digit inflation, partial reserve rebuild, calmer FX market—but the Survey chooses a marketing style rather than an analytical one.

• Cherry-picking: spotlighting the 0.3 % CPI print while ignoring core or month-on-month spikes.

• Over-claiming: 3 % primary surplus conflicts with IMF-validated 2.1 % target.

• Context gaps: little discussion of how import suppression, not productivity, created the external surplus, or how non-tax windfalls drove revenue gains.

For policymakers and investors, the dataset remains useful, but conclusions should be cross-checked against IMF Country Reports, SBP analytics, and independent surveys to obtain a realistic risk picture.