The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) registered 625 new companies during the month of April 2016, witnessing an increase of 22 percent as compared to the same month of the preceding year.
During the first ten months of current fiscal year, 4,984 new companies were registered. As compared to the corresponding period last year, it represented a growth of 21 percent. It is a clear sign of confidence by investors and of a growing trend in company registration.
Around 92 percent of companies have been registered as private limited companies, while around 6 percent were registered as single member companies. Two percent of the companies were registered as public unlisted, non-profit associations, trade organizations and foreign companies.
The following are the sectors which got the most companies registered (from highest to lowest):
Moreover, 6 foreign companies were also registered by the CROs in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.
Foreign investment has been reported in 49 new companies. These companies have foreign investors from Afghanistan, Bosnia Herzegovina, China, Germany, Iraq, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Norway, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE and the US. These companies belong to sectors related to auto and allied, cement, construction, services, engineering, food and beverages, fuel and energy, healthcare, trading, information technology, real estate development, communications, transport, power generation, corporate agricultural farming textile and miscellaneous sector.
During the month the highest numbers of companies, i.e. 192, were registered at the Company Registration Office (CRO), in Islamabad, followed by 186 and 136 companies registered at the CROs in Lahore and Karachi respectively. The CROs in Faisalabad, Quetta Multan, Peshawar and Sukkur and registered 23, 9, 28, 43 and 8 companies respectively.