ISLAMABAD, Jan 7: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan will focus, as part of its future agenda, on the deepening of capital market through the development of retail demand by establishing broker branch networks, etc., SECP chairman, Khalid A. Mirza, stated here on Tuesday.

Addressing a seminar on Capital Market Reforms organized by Bahria University, he said a number of measures had already been taken in this direction. These included the establishment of trading in future contracts in Karachi Stock Exchange and Lahore Stock Exchange, setting up of the National Commodity Futures Exchange and OTC market in Karachi.

“It is our intention to continue efforts to deepen the market and improve risk management at the exchanges, further strengthen audit practices and enforce international accounting standards, clarify, reinforce and enhance standards of corporate governance.”

Enumerating the various reforms, which had been successfully carried out by the SECP, Mirza said none of this had been easy job. “Every step taken by us has initially encountered heavy resistance from all sides — from the regulated, from within the SEC and from other interested quarters.

To some extent, he added, this was understandable because the regulated and other affected people often have short-term considerations, perhaps conditioned by events in the immediate past, whereas the regulator has a long-term perspective and it is difficult to develop a “shared vision”.

The fruits of all these efforts were evident from the fact that Pakistan stock market had become one of the best performing markets in the world; its continuous bullish trend at a time when most of stock markets were caught up in a bearish trap had been noted by experts both within and outside the country.

The market has avoided the adverse systemic repercussion despite a number of exogenous and endogenous shocks it had to endure.

The seminar was also addressed by Aftab Ahmed Chaudhary, Managing Director, Islamabad Stock Exchange and Prof Aurangzeb of Bahria University.