During the last fiscal year (2015-16), the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) registered 6,200 new companies, with a growth rate of 24 percent as compared to previous year.
In June 2016 alone 573 new companies were registered.
A growing trend in company incorporation is the direct result of numerous facilitation measures undertaken by the SECP, including, reduction of fee, expediting service delivery by reduction in time for incorporation under Fast Track Registration Services (FTRS) from a minimum of four to two hours, enabling company incorporation on the same day subject to provision of single page memorandum of association, merging of number of processes into a single process and reduction in time to online enablement of issuance of digital signatures through NIFT etc.
During June, around 87 percent companies were registered as private limited companies, while around 9 percent companies were registered as single-member companies. Four percent of the companies were registered as public unlisted, non-profit associations and foreign companies.
The services sector took the lead with the incorporation 75 companies, followed by construction with 56, information technology with 55, trading with 54, tourism with 35, fuel and energy with 27, real estate development and food and beverages with 21 each, transport with 20, auto and allied with 19, pharmaceutical with 18, power generation and education with 14 each, engineering and corporate agriculture farming with 13 each, communications with 12, broadcasting and telecasting with 11, textile with 10 and 85 companies were registered in other sectors. Moreover, 5 foreign companies were also registered by the CRO in Islamabad and Lahore.
Foreign promoters were reported in 33 new companies during June. These companies have promoters from, Afghanistan, China, Germany, Ghana, Hong Kong, Japan, Jordan, the Netherlands, Russia, Slovak Republic, Turkey, the UK and the US.
These companies are from auto and allied, broadcasting and telecasting, construction, corporate agricultural farming, education, engineering, fuel and energy, information technology, mining and quarrying, sugar and allied, carpets and rugs, transport, tourism, trading and miscellaneous sector.
During the month of June, the highest numbers of companies, i.e. 204, were registered at the Company Registration Office (CRO), Islamabad, followed by 183 and 130 companies registered at CRO Lahore and Karachi respectively. The CROs in Faisalabad, Multan, Peshawar and Quetta registered 11, 15, 24 and 6 companies respectively.
