The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) registered 1,525 new companies in July 2019. It showed a growth of 41% as compared to the corresponding month of the last financial year, raising the number of total registered companies to 102,864.
The massive increase is the result of a series of recent reform measures undertaken by the SECP.
Overall, around 71% companies were registered as private limited companies, while around 25% were registered as single-member companies. 4 percent were registered as public unlisted companies, not for profit associations, foreign companies and Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) whereas 96 % of these companies were registered by using online facility including applications received from overseas subscribers through eService and around 49 % of these companies were registered on the same day.
The SECP has also upgraded its browser’s compatibility and now in addition to Internet Explorer, other browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Safari and Opera can be used for name reservation and company incorporation process.
Sector-Wise Registration
The trading sector took the lead and 266 new companies are registered in this sector, construction followed with 186, Information Technology with 183, Services sector with 177, Tourism with 69, Real Estate Development with 59, Food and Beverages with 56, Engineering with 44, Education with 43, Marketing and Advertisement with 40, Textile with 39, Corporate Agricultural Farming with 36, Pharmaceutical with 30, Healthcare with 29, Transport with 28, Chemical with 27, Mining and quarrying with 24, Communication with 21, Auto and Allied with 18, Fuel and Energy with 16, Logging with 14, Broadcasting and Telecasting with 12, Paper & Board, and Power Generation with 11 each and 86 companies were registered in other sectors.
Foreign Investment
Foreign investment has been reported in 58 new companies. These companies have foreign investors from, Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, Iran, Italy, Korea South, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sweden,, Turkey, the UAE the UK and the US.
City-Wise Registration
The highest numbers of companies, i.e. 603 were registered in Company Registration Office-Islamabad, followed by 378 and 283 companies registered in Lahore and Karachi respectively. The Company Registration Offices in Peshawar, Multan, Faisalabad, Gilgit-Baltistan, Quetta, and Sukkur registered, 100, 76, 41, 27, 10 and 7 companies, respectively.
