Pakistanis having shares in companies operating abroad can repatriate as their foreign assets under the Assets Declaration Ordinance 2019. Both the residents of Pakistan and expats can benefit from the scheme.
According to State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), the legal owner, i.e. Foreign Portfolio Investor in whose name the Unique Identification Number has been registered, of the shares shall approach the AD (SCRA maintaining bank) to declare the assets.
The request shall also state to transfer the shares from the depository (CDC) account of the legal owner to depository (CDC) account in the name of the declarant as a local/domestic shareholder (local securities account details will be provided) and delink the said holdings from SCRA in banks’ books.
This will be applicable only to shares of Foreign Portfolio Investors, which are currently kept under the participant ID of the AD. The said transfer between the two accounts should be in accordance with the procedure prescribed by the CDC for this purpose.
The bank will issue a certificate to SBP on the format, attached as Form-II, that shares have been transferred to the declarant CDC sub-account in line with the instructions received from the client, excluding it from SCRA regime with a copy to CDC and FBR for their information and necessary action.
CDC will also confirm that consequent upon the request of the legal owner, the shares have been transferred in the name of declarant on non-repatriable basis.
The transfer and registration of shares from the name of present legal owner to the declarant shall be completed on or before June 30, 2019 and the declarant shall disclose the details of such shares, including name and number of such shares and their face value in his/her asset declaration under Assets Declaration Ordinance, 2019.
The owner of shares i.e. the person in whose name the shares are already registered with SBP) will submit its application, duly forwarded by the respective company (the company whose shares are held by the non-resident on a repatriable basis) through the banks, to SBP for cancellation of registration of shares.
The application shall explicitly state that the shares are beneficially owned by the declarant (Name, Father Name, Residential Address, CNIC/Passport No.) who wants to declare them under the Assets Declaration Ordinance 2019.
Further details can be viewed here.
