IMF has lowered the GDP growth projection and elevated the inflationary figures for Pakistan, indicating that stagflation will persist during the current fiscal year 2023-24.

In its World Economic Outlook for 2023-24, the IMF lowered the GDP growth rate on Tuesday, estimated at 2.5 per cent for the current fiscal year, against an official projection of 3.5 per cent for FY2024.
Amid the persistence of stagflation, the unemployment rate will remain high in Pakistan, whereby the ratio of unemployed people is projected to stand at 8 per cent in FY2024 against 8.5 per cent in FY2023. The unemployment rate stood at 6.2 per cent in FY2022. The IMF’s data shows the unemployment rate has increased in the last two years. The World Economic Outlook for 2023-24 also projected a negative GDP growth rate of -0.5 per cent in the previous financial year 2022-23 under the PDM-led regime. However, the government gave a provisional growth rate of 0.29 per cent for the last fiscal year. The IMF has projected that the country’s GDP growth rate might rise to 5 per cent by FY2028.
Under the IMF programme, the caretaker government is all set to release the quarterly GDP growth figures under the $3 billion SBA programme by the end of November 2023, so the finalized GDP growth figure would be turned negative for the last financial year.