The agriculture sector in Pakistan has recovered well this year by registering 5pc growth compared to the last year’s 1.6pc despite marginally less production of rice and cotton and negative growth in maze, barley rapeseed and mustard.

Major crops have bounced back from the last year’s negative growth of 4.1pc and posted a positive growth of 7.6pc, mainly due to historic production of wheat and vibrant performance by sugarcane crop, shows the Pakistan Economic Survey 2006-07 released by the government here on Friday.

In 2004-05, agriculture sector had grown by 6.7pc, 1.7pc more than this year. Rice production at 5.4 million tons was marginally less than 5.5 million tons produced last year. Despite the lower yield, higher demand abroad for Pakistan Basmati rice and high international prices are expected to surpass the last year’s export earning from Basmati rice.

The growth in three major crops included maize, barely and rapeseed and mustard have decreased by 4.5pc, 5.7pc and 13.4pc respectively over the last year.