On January 20, 2022, Pakistan's GDP grew by Rs 8.1 trillion overnight. Not a single factory opened. Not a single additional tax was collected. Public debt, frozen at Rs 39.9 trillion, did not change by a single rupee. But the debt-to-GDP ratio fell from 83.5% to 71.8%, instantly.

This is a thread about the institution behind that number, and why it urgently needs to be better funded. 🧵 The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics is the most consequential institution most Pakistanis never think about. It computes GDP, tracks inflation, counts us in the census, and tells us how many people are poor, what they earn, and how they spend.

Every IMF negotiation, every monetary policy decision, and every poverty programme in this country is built on PBS data. When the numbers are imprecise, so is the policy that follows from them.

Pakistan’s economy runs on small shops & micro units:

99.9% of businesses employ fewer than 250 people.

The first digital Economic Census 2023 published by PBS maps 25 million jobs across 7 million establishments.

Here’s what the numbers reveal 🧵 Small really is big:

👉 7.1 million establishments have 1–50 workers

👉 Only 35,351 are medium-sized (51–250 workers)

👉 Just 7,086 are large (>250 workers)

That’s 99.9% small businesses seemingly driving Pakistan’s economy.

The Finance Act may have been passed, but the real reckoning came with the close of the fiscal year. Provisional figures reveal not just what was collected, but who paid it, which sectors led, and how our tax base is truly structured. A breakdown follows - a thread Income tax made up 49.3% of total revenue, sales tax 33.2%, federal excise 6.5%, and customs duty 10.9%. These shares have remained fairly stable, though the growing role of income tax suggests improved documentation and compliance among firms.

Super tax was originally levied in 2015 under section 4B of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001, to generate Rs. 24 billion in extra revenue, through Finance Bill (2015-2016); back then for the rehabilitation of temporarily displaced persons ( a thread) At the time it was levied on rich individuals, AOPs and companies earning an income above Rs. 500 million at the rate of 4% on banking companies and 3% on other categories.