ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has set a growth target of 4.8 percent for the next fiscal year, the country’s planning minister Asad Umar said on Friday during a press conference, and added that the estimated number was an improvement on the provisional GDP growth rate of 3.94 percent for the current year.

Discussing the factors driving the country’s economic expansion, he mentioned the Pakistani diaspora that sent record remittances to their homeland this year.

The number, he noted, was expected to surge from $21.7 billion to $29.1 billion by the end of the current fiscal year.

Umar emphasized that this constituted a mammoth increase of $7.4 billion within a year, adding that the country’s central bank was confident its policies would lead to a further rise in remittances during the next year when the number was expected to reach $31.3 billion.

Umar also said the government would be improving its cotton yield for next year by introducing better seeds and pesticides that would lead to the production of 10.5 million bales.

The planning minister said he expected the country’s exports to increase from $25.2 billion to $26.8 billion, adding that the current account deficit for the next year could be 0.07 percent.