12 May 2004	Wednesday	21 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

ISLAMABAD, May 11: A total of 234 new companies with aggregate authorized capital of Rs2.882 billion were registered under the Companies Ordinance, 1984 in April 2004, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan said here on Tuesday.

While giving details, the SECP Commissioner, Mr Abdul Rehman Qureshi said the figure of new incorporations thus surpassed those of the corresponding month of 2003 by 36 per cent and those of previous month (March 2004) by 13 per cent.

The commission, he stated, had decided to release the figures of new incorporations every month in order to keep the general public abreast of the developments in corporate sector.

After taking into account the three private limited companies, which ceased functioning in April 2004, the total number of companies operating at the end of the month rose to 43,309.

These included 2,742 public companies, 39,395 private companies, 131 single member companies, 482 companies limited by guarantee and trade organizations, 554 foreign companies and 5 companies with unlimited liabilities.

Of the 234 companies registered in April 2004, 228 companies were limited by shares, including 6 public companies, 210 private companies, 12 single companies and 6 foreign companies.

Highest number of companies were registered at Karachi, that is 84 (37pc of total incorporation), followed by Lahore (77) and Islamabad (45). The Company Registrar Offices of Faisalabad, Quetta, Multan and Peshawar registered 8, 1, 5 and 14 companies respectively.

As regards the authorized capital of various categories of companies registered in April, 2004, Qureshi stated that the new private companies had been incorporated with an authorized capital of Rs1.881 billion, single member companies Rs231.1 million and public companies Rs770.2 million.

According to the sector-wise breakup, Qureshi said, the most flourishing sector in terms of number of new incorporations was the telecommunications. This was followed by the Information Technology with 13 companies, chemicals and pharmaceuticals with 11 companies, food & allied and transport sector with 9 companies each.

In fact, the SECP Commissioner observed, the expansion of corporate sector characterized the whole of past year. Thus during the period May 2003 to April 2004, the number of new companies registered was 2,025, as against only 1,525 of the preceding 12 months.

Giving figures for the calendar year 2003, he said 1,767 companies were incorporated, recording growth rate of 26pc. As against this, the year 2002 had shown a growth rate of 20pc with atotal 1,407 new incorporations.

In reply to a question, Mr Qureshi said the SECP had proposed to the government to apply to single member companies - a concept newly introduced by it in Pakistan - the same tax rate as that allowed to sole proprietorship firms.

The Chairman of Central Board of Review, he added, had assured the commission that the proposal would be considered favourably. The objective, Qureshi stated, was to encourage documentation of the economy.

This would not only raise the government revenues but also discourage the malpractices and financial crimes which unscrupulous elements indulged in due to lack of documentation, he said.