ISLAMABAD : The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has projected that Pakistan’s economy would regain some pace and grow at 2 percent in the upcoming fiscal year 2020-21. “Pakistan’s economy was on the path to recovery before COVID-19, and once the COVID-19 impact subsides, Pakistan will resume its efforts to address macroeconomic imbalances and initiate structural reform, likely holding economic growth to a projected 2.0% in FY2021,” the ADB said in a regular supplement to its annual flagship economic publication, the Asian Development Outlook (ADO) 2020, which was originally released in April. With respect to inflation rate, the ADB supplement suggested that inflation rate in Pakistan would remain at 11 percent as against the earlier projection of 11.5 percent in current fiscal year ending on June 30. Similarly in next fiscal year, the inflation rate would remain 8 percent against the earlier projection of 8.3 percent. It said overall the developing Asia would barely grow in 2020 as containment measures to address the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic hamper economic activity and weaken external demand, according to a new set of forecasts from the ADB. ADB forecasts growth of 0.1% for the region in 2020 which is down from the 2.2% forecast in April and would be the slowest growth for the region since 1961. Growth in 2021 is expected to rise to 6.2%, as forecast in April.
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