Report by Engineering Post
The federal government had targeted the industrial sector to grow by 4.3 percent during the outgoing financial year 2025-26 duly supported by 3.0 percent growth in mining and quarrying and 4.7 percent in manufacturing including a 3.5 percent increase in Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM).
How much of these targets were achieved will only be known at the end June 2026 and official documents containing updated facts and figures become available.
The low base of FY 2024-25, improved energy supply, lower interest rates, exchange rate stability, and easing global commodity prices were expected to facilitate the recovery.
Official quarters concerned hoped that the continue d positive momentum was likely to occur in the Small and Medium enterprises (SMEs), utilities, construction, and slaughtering Structural reforms under the National Economic Transformation Plan (URAAN Pakistan) and targeted support from Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) were hopefully expected to further enhance industrial sector performance.
It may be mentioned here, as per the information available from the official sources concerned, the Industrial Sector in terms of its overall performance had rebounded in FY 2024-25, registering a growth of 4.8 percent compared to a contraction of only 1.4 percent during the previous year 2023-24.
The major driving force in pulling the industrial sector from negative growth was Electricity, Gas, and Water Supply, which altogether had posted growth of 28.9 percent compared to a contraction of 19.9 percent during the previous year.
The construction sector had also drive industrial growth as it had grown 6.6 percent compared to a contraction of only 1.1 percent during the previous year.
Small-Scale Manufacturing LSM) posted growth of 8.8 percent during the period under report here as compared to 9.0 percent during previous year 2023-24.
Mining & Quarrying had contracted by 3.4 percent in FY 2024-25 compared to a contraction of 4.0 percent during the previous year, mainly due to ongoing challenges in mineral extraction and exploration.
Manufacturing also had underperformed, with the growth rate slowing from 3.0 percent in the previous year to 1.3 percent in FY 2024-25, LSM was a key contributor to this slowdown, which had contracted by 1.5 percent in FY 2024-25 compared to modest 0.9 percent growth during the previous year, pointing to persisting weaknesses
in the industrial sector and subdued demand.
