ISLAMABAD, Feb 2: A total of 219 companies have been registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) during January this year as compared to 187 companies registered during the corresponding month last year, showing an increase of 17 per cent.

According to official figures released by the SECP here on Wednesday, among the total registered companies, 207 were limited by shares-including seven public unlisted companies, 193 private companies, seven single-member companies-six foreign companies, four associations not for profit, one company limited by guarantee and a trade organization.

The Company Registration Office (CRO) Karachi, incorporated 80 companies, while CROs Lahore and Islamabad registered 76 and 44 companies respectively. The CROs Faisalabad, Quetta, Multan, Peshawar and Sukkur registered five, two, five, six and one company respectively.

Total authorized capital of the 207 limited by shares companies amounted to Rs3.38 billion. Out of these, 193 were private companies having authorized capital of Rs2.76 billion, seven single-member companies with an authorized capital of Rs 22.3million, and seven were public companies with an authorized capital of Rs 597.5million.

The most flourishing sector in terms of number of new registration was services sector where 39 companies were registered, followed by 24 companies registered in trading and 15 in real estate development sector.

The total number of companies at work as on January 31, this year was 45,165 including 2,811 public companies, 41,057 private companies, 197 single-member companies, 285 associations not for profit, 55 companies limited by guarantee, 167 trade organizations, 588 foreign companies and five companies with unlimited liabilities.

This is an increase of 6 per cent as compared to 42,542 companies registered with SECP up to January 31, 2004. The number of new companies registered during the period from January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2004 reached a new record of 2,591 as against only 1,766 companies registered during 2003, reflecting a 47 per cent increase during the calendar year.

As many as 219 companies were registered during January, 2005 with an increase of 17 per cent as compared to the corresponding period last year. This brought the Commission's total portfolio of registered corporate sector to 45,165 companies as on January 31, 2005.

According to the SECP spokesperson, the number of new registration every month had been increasing at a considerable pace and marked with an average new incorporation exceeding 200 companies continuously from March 2004.

The corporate sector had maintained a similar trend in the beginning of this year with 219 new registrations in January, far surpassing the comparative registration figure of the previous year.