KARACHI, July 21: Syed Naveed Qamar, Federal Minister for Finance, Revenue, Economic Affairs, Statistics and Privatisation, would visit the Karachi Stock Exchange on Tuesday.

The minister is scheduled to address the members of the exchange at 2:30pm.

All directors / members and nominee directors of corporate members have been asked by the bourse to attend the meeting which analysts believed was significant coming quickly on top of the visit of the KSE, by the Governor State Bank of Pakistan on Monday.

The stock market showed a sharp recovery on Monday, finishing day’s trading with a gain of 139.52 points in the KSE-100 index, a refreshing pull back from declining prices and diminishing volumes of the 15 consecutive sessions prior to Friday, when the market had closed modestly higher.

Much of the Monday’s recovery was stated to be due to the sudden burst of interest by the government and the central bank in the affairs of the bourse.

The unpleasant events of investors’ brawl at the bourse on Thursday last had attracted wide publicity in the local and foreign media. The Financial Times London, the world’s largest circulated financial daily, gave coverage to the KSE investor protest on top of Page 1 in its Friday issue and also a comment on the last page. But what surprised many was that the daily also wrote a leader on the event. In comparison to the numerous developed and emerging markets of the world, KSE was but a small fry.

“What had prompted the world media to look at the US$45 billion KSE with such a deep interest,” said an analyst and just for comparison sake quoting Mumbai stock exchange, which was as many as 40 times bigger with market capitalisation of $1.8 trillion.

Market participants were expecting the finance minister to come along with ‘incentives’ to attract investment in the equity market.

Reclaiming foreign equity investment, which had departed over the last three months, was expected to be on top of the agenda. “We will welcome any suggestions and assistance from the government over ways and means to pull the market out of the quagmire, especially with regard to the setting up of Market Support Fund”, said a director at the KSE.