By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The large-scale manufacturing sector contracted by 1.9 percent year-on-year during the first eight months of the 2024-25 fiscal year (July-February), driven by steep declines in food, chemicals, and construction-linked industries, provisional data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) showed on Tuesday.
The sector’s struggles deepened in February 2025, with output dropping 3.51 percent compared to February 2024 and 5.9 percent month-on-month, extending a trend of negative growth after a 3.81 percent year-on-year contraction in November 2024 and a 1.19 percent monthly decline that month.
The PBS attributed the overall downturn to significant declines in food production (-5.01 percent), chemicals (-18.52 percent), non-metallic mineral products (-1.80 percent), iron and steel (-9.76 percent), electrical equipment (-7.36 percent), and machinery and equipment (-33.54 percent), with the furniture sector plunging 56.49 percent.
These losses offset modest gains in tobacco (+17.75 percent), textiles (+0.33 percent), garments (+2.63 percent), automobiles (+30.72 percent), and petroleum products (+23.37 percent), which contributed 0.25, 0.29, 1.29, 0.72, and 0.30 percentage points, respectively, to the index.
While export-oriented sectors like automobiles, textiles, and petroleum products showed resilience, declines in construction-linked industries such as cement, iron, and steel pointed to weak infrastructure demand. Pharmaceuticals (+2.48 percent), electronics (+7.15 percent), and leather goods (+2.30 percent) also posted growth, but contractions in fertilizers (-17.94 percent), beverages (-7.54 percent), and wood products (-14.58 percent) underscored broader industrial fragility.
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