KARACHI: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) registered 1,101 companies in August, an increase of 17 per cent over the same month last year, raising the total number to 89,702. Around 74pc companies were registered as private limited companies, while around 23pc as single member companies. 3pc were registered as public unlisted, non-profit associations, foreign companies and limited liability partnership (LLP) in the month under review.

The trading sector took the lead with the incorporation of 189 companies, construction (165), services (129), IT (119), tourism (68), food and beverages (38), engineering (35), real estate development (31), textile (24), education (23), marketing and development (22), corporate agricultural farming (21), pharmaceutical (20), healthcare (19), auto & allied and transport each (18), logging (12), fuel and energy (11) and 139 others were registered in other sectors. Moreover, five foreign companies were also registered by CROs in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore.

Foreign investment has been reported in 52 companies from, China, France, Germany, South Korea, New Zea­land, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UK, US and Yemen.

The 361 companies were registered in Islamabad, followed by 284 and 263 companies registered in Lahore and Karachi respectively. The CROs in Peshawar, Multan, Faisalabad, Quetta, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Sukkur registered, 72, 41, 38, 19, 18 and 5 companies respectively.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2018