THE Asian Development Bank says Pakistan’s economy is moving out of the coronavirus-induced sluggishness and beginning to crawl forward. A new report released by the Manila-based bank on Tuesday forecast a modest but broad-based recovery, projecting the economy’s expansion by 2pc in the present fiscal year. This is in line with the government’s GDP target of 2.1pc and a significant improvement over the negative growth of 0.4pc last year. Indeed, short-term economic trends show that the economy is returning to the path of recovery. Yet the ADB forecast in the Asian Development Outlook Update report should not be taken as gospel because it assumes that the impact of the Covid-19 health crisis will subside by end-December this year and the implementation of structural reform under the IMF Extended Fund Facility to address macroeconomic imbalances will resume.