ISLAMABAD, July 1: As many as 269 new companies of various categories were registered by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan in June, 2004, showing 69 per cent increase over the corresponding period of previous year.

Signifying the rapid growth of the country's corporate sector, this was the highest number of incorporations achieved in a single month during 2003-04. In June, 2003, the number of new registrations was only 159, while May 2004, saw 207 new companies making their debut.

Giving details, the SECP Commissioner (Company Law), Mr Abdul Rehman Qureshi said of the 269 new companies, 263 companies were limited by shares. Their further break-up is: 9 public listed companies, 247 private companies and 7 single member companies.

The aggregate authorized capital of 263 limited-by-shares companies stood at Rs10,025m. This includes Rs4,767.7 million of private companies, Rs20.7 million of single member companies and Rs5,236.6 million of public listed companies.

Significantly, the CRO (Company Registration Office) of Lahore was on top in terms of the highest number of companies registered - 95. This accounts for 35pc of total registrations.

It was followed by Karachi and Islamabad, which registered 89 and 60 companies, respectively. As regards the other CROs, Faisalabad saw 9 incorporations, Quetta 5, Multan 3 and Peshawar 8.

According to further analysis carried out by the SECP staff, the textile composite emerged as the most dominant sector in terms of number of new incorporations.

The number of companies in this category registered in June was 15, followed by 12 companies registered in the communications other than transport and information technology sector each, 11 companies registered in housing and real estate and food and allied sector each, etc.

Qureshi also provided aggregate figures for the financial year 2003-04. But the details would be made available after disaggregation of the overall figures. According to him, a total of 2,208 new companies were registered during the whole year, as against only 1,553 in 2002-03. He said the growth rate of new companies has multiplied by 105 per cent in five years, given that the number of such registrations in 1999-2000 was 1,073.