In June 2016, when Pakistan’s finance minister Ishaq Dar presented his pre-budget Pakistan Economic Survey for financial year 2015-16, he had to acknowledge that several key targets had been missed. The Pakistani media, not known for its temperance, howled its displeasure. And yet the economic mood in the country is more positive than it has been for some time.
Certainly, the 4.7% headline gross domestic product (GDP) growth figure for the year ending June 2016, as estimated by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, fell short of the government's 5.5% target. One reason for that was the catastrophic failure of this year's all-important cotton crop, with production in Punjab reportedly down by 45%. Though wheat and sugar cane did well, the rice harvest was also poor. Consequently, agricultural output did not meet its 3.9% growth target but fell by 0.2%.