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Industry of Pakistan

  • 9 min read
  • 8 chapters

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Through Gross domestic product, Partition of India and Iron ore

History

Pakistan, which had almost no large industrial units at the time of partition in 1947, now has a fairly broad industrial base, and manufacturing accounts for about 17 percent of GDP. Cotton textile production is the single most important industry, accounting for about 19 percent of large-scale industrial employment. Cotton yarn, cotton cloth, made-up textiles, ready-made garments, and knitwear collectively accounted for nearly 60 percent of Pakistan's exports in 1999-2000. Other important industries are cement, vegetable oil, fertilizer, sugar, steel, machinery, tobacco, paper and paperboard, chemicals, and food processing. The government is attempting to diversify the country's industrial base and increase the emphasis on export industries. Small-scale and cottage industries are numerically significant but account for a relatively small proportion of the GDP at about 6 percent. Small-scale industry includes facilities, which employ fewer than 50 workers, and cottage industries (industrial units in which the owner works and is aided by family members but employs no hired labor). In 1999, industrial production grew by 3.9 percent.

Since the mid-1960s, the industrial sector has produced 19 to 25 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), accounting for 28.5 percent of GDP in 2004. Manufacturing and construction dominate the industrial sector, accounting for around 19 percent of GDP. Since the 1980s, approximately 17 to 20 percent of the working population has been employed in the industrial sector (25 percent in 2004), mostly in manufacturing and construction. Although the industrial base has diversified since independence, the production base depends heavily on textiles and sugar. Manufacturing output is therefore vulnerable to adverse weather conditions and fluctuations in international prices for cotton and sugar. Various liberalization reforms have been pursued since the early 1980s but have been hindered by substantial corruption, frequent raw material shortages, the government's tendency to provide generous concessions to particular sectors (such as sugar refining and yarn spinning), and a burdensome tax structure that has helped promote the development of the informal economy.

It is estimated that due to insufficiency, Pakistan loses about 5 to 6 percent of its GDP (approximately $6 billion). Logistical bottlenecks increase the cost of production of our goods by about 30 percent".

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