The PTI government led by Imran Khan governed Pakistan from August 2018 to April 2022. Its record includes expanded social protection and record remittances, alongside high inflation, a sharp currency depreciation and a large rise in public debt.
This article sets out the measurable record of that term using figures published by the State Bank of Pakistan, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Federal Board of Revenue. Contested claims are attributed to whoever made them, and where credible sources disagree the disagreement is shown rather than resolved.
What Was the PTI Government’s Term in Office?
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf formed the federal government after the general election of 25 July 2018. The National Assembly elected Imran Khan as prime minister on 17 August 2018, and he took oath the following day. The government was removed on 10 April 2022, when 174 members of the 342-member National Assembly voted for a motion of no confidence.
The term ran for about three years and eight months. Imran Khan is the first prime minister of Pakistan removed by a successful no-confidence vote, a distinction recorded alongside every other holder of the office in this list of prime ministers of Pakistan.
Key Economic Indicators at the Start and End of the PTI Term
The table below compares the main economic indicators at the start and the end of the term. Pakistan’s fiscal year runs from July to June, so FY2018 ended six weeks before the government took office and FY2022 ended after it left.
| Indicator | At start of term (2018) | At end of term (2022) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real GDP growth | 6.15 percent in FY2018 | 4.78 percent in FY2022 | World Bank national accounts data |
| CPI inflation, annual average | 4.7 percent in FY2018 | 12.2 percent in FY2022 | Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, via the Pakistan Economic Survey |
| Rupee per US dollar | About Rs 123 in August 2018 | About Rs 185 in April 2022 | Geo News and The Express Tribune, citing market rates |
| Current account balance | Deficit of 19.9 billion USD in FY2018 | Deficit of 17.4 billion USD, 4.6 percent of GDP, in FY2022 | State Bank of Pakistan balance of payments data |
| Workers’ remittances | 21.8 billion USD in FY2019, the first full year of the term | 31.2 billion USD in FY2022, a record | State Bank of Pakistan |
| FBR tax collection | Rs 3,841 billion in FY2018, including amnesty receipts | Rs 6,149 billion in FY2022 | Federal Board of Revenue year books |
| Total public debt | Rs 24.95 trillion at end-June 2018 | Rs 49.2 trillion at end-June 2022 | State Bank of Pakistan, reported by The Express Tribune |
| Corruption Perceptions Index | Rank 117 of 180, score 33, in 2018 | Rank 140 of 180, score 28, in 2021 | Transparency International |
Two cautions apply. Pakistan rebased its national accounts to a 2015-16 base year in 2022, so growth for these years has been revised more than once and the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics puts FY2022 growth higher than the World Bank does. The public debt figure for end-June 2022 falls about three months after the government left office.
What Were the Economic Achievements of the PTI Government?
Four measurable gains stand out over the term. Each is stated with the figure and the source that supports it.
- Record remittances. Inflows from overseas Pakistanis reached 29.4 billion USD in FY2021 and 31.2 billion USD in FY2022, the highest recorded to that point, according to State Bank of Pakistan data. The government attributed the rise to the Roshan Digital Account and the Pakistan Remittance Initiative; economists also pointed to pandemic-era shifts from informal hundi channels into banking channels.
- External account correction. The current account deficit inherited at 19.9 billion USD in FY2018 was compressed to about 0.8 percent of GDP by FY2021, on State Bank figures, before widening again to 4.6 percent of GDP in FY2022.
- Revenue growth. Federal Board of Revenue collection rose from Rs 3,841 billion in FY2018 to Rs 6,149 billion in FY2022 on the board’s own year-book figures, an increase of about 60 percent in nominal terms.
- Business-climate ranking. Pakistan moved from 136 to 108 in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2020 report, published in October 2019, and was listed among the world’s ten most improved economies. The World Bank discontinued the Doing Business report in September 2021 after an external investigation found data irregularities in the 2018 and 2020 editions, so the ranking no longer exists as a live measure.
Growth also rebounded after the pandemic. World Bank data record real GDP growth of 6.51 percent in FY2021, following a contraction of 1.27 percent in FY2020.
What Was the Ehsaas Programme?
Ehsaas was the government’s social protection umbrella, launched on 27 March 2019. It covered cash transfers, interest-free loans, scholarships, nutrition programmes and shelters, delivered largely through the existing Benazir Income Support Programme structure.
Its largest single operation was Ehsaas Emergency Cash, opened in March 2020 in response to COVID-19. The government disbursed Rs 179 billion as one-time assistance of Rs 12,000 per household to about 15 million families. The Kafaalat stipend component enrolled roughly 8 million women and used biometric verification and digital payments. Against the population of 241.5 million recorded in the 2023 digital census, taken after the term ended, the Emergency Cash caseload reached a substantial share of Pakistani households.
Assessments of Ehsaas differ. The government presented it as a redesign of social protection around transparency and targeting. Independent reviewers noted that the registry and payment rails were largely inherited rather than newly built, and that the expansion coincided with an inflation shock that cut the real value of each transfer.
What Did the Sehat Sahulat Programme Provide?
Sehat Sahulat, marketed as the Qaumi Sehat Card, provided hospital treatment cover of up to Rs 1 million per family per year at empanelled public and private hospitals. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa extended the card to every family in the province, and the prime minister launched province-wide cover for Punjab during the term. The scheme was also extended to Islamabad Capital Territory, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.
The design covers inpatient treatment only. Outpatient consultations, primary care and medicines outside admission are not included, and the recurring premium cost sits on provincial budgets, the point raised most often by health economists reviewing the scheme’s sustainability.
What Was the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami?
The Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme was inaugurated on 2 September 2018 as a federal scaling-up of the Billion Tree Afforestation Project run in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from 2014. Phase 1 was approved at a total cost of Rs 125.2 billion, split between federal and provincial development budgets, and ran as a four-year project from 2019 to 2023, with a target of planting or regenerating 3.29 billion plants in that phase.
Independent assessment of the results is contested and this article does not settle it. WWF-Pakistan’s third-party monitoring of the earlier Khyber Pakhtunkhwa project reported survival rates near 89 percent and accepted the government’s planting counts, and a consortium of WWF, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Union for Conservation of Nature was engaged to audit the federal programme. Separate academic work published in 2022 reported survival rates far below the official figures at the sites studied, and a case study by the International Institute for Environment and Development found that landless communities and pastoralists were often excluded from decisions and from the benefits. The gap between these findings reflects differences in method, site selection and the age of the plantings.
How Did the PTI Government Handle COVID-19?
Pakistan’s pandemic response was run through the National Command and Operation Center, which operated from April 2020 until it was wound up in April 2022. The centre coordinated federal and provincial action and used localised closures, described by the government as smart lockdowns, in place of prolonged national shutdowns.
Recorded outcomes were mild by regional standards. Pakistan’s cumulative case count stood at 1,525,620 on 4 April 2022, with about 30,300 deaths recorded on National Command and Operation Center data in March 2022, in a population then estimated above 220 million. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised the response and noted that Pakistan repurposed the surveillance infrastructure built for polio eradication.
Comparative studies of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan found flatter case curves in Bangladesh and Pakistan than in India, while cautioning that testing rates, death registration and reporting practices differ enough between the three countries to limit any direct comparison. Pakistan’s low recorded death toll is reported by researchers with that qualification attached rather than as a settled result.
What Happened to CPEC During the PTI Term?
Momentum on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor slowed during the term. Analysts date the slowdown of the second phase to 2019, when Pakistani deadlines began to slip, and Chinese foreign direct investment inflows fell well below their earlier peak by FY2023. Contributing factors cited in these assessments include the balance-of-payments crisis, the pandemic, and Chinese concerns over the security of nationals working on corridor projects after a series of attacks.
Critics said the corridor was pushed to the back burner and that early ministerial statements questioning first-phase contract terms unsettled Chinese counterparts. The government said it was renegotiating for better terms and prioritising special economic zones and agriculture over new power projects. The project history is covered in this explainer on what CPEC is and which projects it covers.
What Were the Failures of the PTI Government?
Five failures are documented by the same official sources used above.
- Inflation. Average CPI inflation rose from 4.7 percent in FY2018 to 12.2 percent in FY2022 on Pakistan Bureau of Statistics figures, eroding real incomes across the term.
- Currency depreciation. The rupee fell from about Rs 123 per US dollar in August 2018 to about Rs 185 by April 2022. Geo News reported a fall of 30.5 percent by December 2021 alone. The direction and scale of this slide are set out in this comparison of the Pakistani rupee against the US dollar.
- Debt accumulation. Total public debt stood at Rs 24.95 trillion at end-June 2018 and Rs 49.2 trillion at end-June 2022 on State Bank of Pakistan data reported by The Express Tribune. The government said depreciation and interest payments on inherited debt drove most of the increase; the opposition said borrowing was the largest in any comparable period.
- A stop-start IMF programme. The IMF Executive Board approved a 39-month Extended Fund Facility of about 6 billion USD on 3 July 2019. The first review completed in December 2019, the programme was disrupted by the pandemic from March 2020, and the second to fifth reviews were only completed together in March 2021. The relief package of 28 February 2022, which cut petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 per litre and electricity tariffs by Rs 5 per unit and froze them until the next budget, reversed fiscal commitments made weeks earlier. The IMF later described the package as largely untargeted, and the programme stalled again.
- Accountability outcomes. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index moved from rank 117 of 180 with a score of 33 in 2018 to rank 140 of 180 with a score of 28 in 2021. The index measures perceptions among experts and business executives rather than measured corruption. Opposition parties said the National Accountability Bureau was used selectively against them; the government said the cases were the courts’ business and predated its term.
How Did the PTI Tenure End?
Opposition parties submitted a motion of no confidence in March 2022. On 3 April 2022 Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri rejected the motion without a vote, and the National Assembly was dissolved on the prime minister’s advice. The Supreme Court declared the rejection and the dissolution unconstitutional on 7 April 2022 and ordered the vote to be held.
The vote was completed in the early hours of 10 April 2022 after a session lasting more than 13 hours and the resignation of Speaker Asad Qaiser. A total of 174 members voted for the motion in the 342-member house. Shehbaz Sharif was elected prime minister the following day. Imran Khan said his removal was the result of a foreign conspiracy; the opposition parties rejected that account.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What were the main achievements of the PTI government?
Record remittances of 31.2 billion USD in FY2022, a narrowed current account deficit by FY2021, revenue growth to Rs 6,149 billion, the Ehsaas social protection programme and the Sehat Sahulat health card are the most documented achievements.
How long did the PTI government last?
About three years and eight months. Imran Khan took oath as prime minister on 18 August 2018 and was removed by a no-confidence vote on 10 April 2022, short of the five-year parliamentary term.
Why was Imran Khan removed from office?
A no-confidence motion passed on 10 April 2022 with 174 votes in the 342-member National Assembly, after the Supreme Court ruled on 7 April that blocking the motion and dissolving the assembly were unconstitutional.
What was the Ehsaas programme?
Ehsaas was the social protection umbrella launched on 27 March 2019. Its largest operation, Ehsaas Emergency Cash, paid Rs 179 billion in Rs 12,000 grants to about 15 million families during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Did the PTI government complete its term?
No. The government fell about 16 months short of a full five-year term. No prime minister of Pakistan had previously been removed by a successful no-confidence vote.
Last Thoughts on the PTI Government’s Record
The record of the 2018 to 2022 term is mixed rather than uniform, and the honest summary is that it moved in opposite directions on different measures. Social protection reached more households than before, remittances hit records, the external deficit narrowed sharply in the middle of the term, and the pandemic response drew international notice. Over the same period inflation more than doubled, the rupee lost roughly a third of its value, public debt close to doubled, the IMF programme repeatedly stalled, and corridor investment slowed. Both halves of that record come from the same official statistics, and any assessment that reports only one of them is incomplete.
