The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has registered 1,659 new companies in October 2019, raising the total number of incorporated companies to 107,062.
The recent measures by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) to make the process of company incorporation easy and hassle-free, led to a 19% increase in the registration of new companies in October 2019.
During October, 71% of companies were registered as private limited companies, 26% as single-member companies and 3% were registered as public unlisted companies, not for profit associations, foreign companies and Limited Liability Partnership (LLP). Amongst new incorporations, 96% of companies were registered online and 43%Â were registered on the same day. During the month, 98 foreign users completed registration from overseas.
Sector-Wise Registration
The trading sector took the lead with the incorporation of 288 companies, followed by I.T. with 203, services with 192, construction with 167, tourism with 94, real estate development with 75, education with 62, and food and beverages with 51 companies incorporated.
Similarly, 49 companies were registered in engineering, followed by marketing & development with 41, corporate agricultural farming with 40, transport with 33, textile with 31, pharmaceutical with 30, mining and quarrying with 28, communication with 27, chemical, fuel & energy, and logging with 24 each, healthcare with 23, auto and allied with 20, power generation with 14, cables and electric goods with 13, paper and board with 12, cosmetics and toiletries with 11 and 83 companies were registered in other sectors.
Foreign Investment
Foreign investment has been reported in 42 new companies. These companies have foreign investors from, Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, Iran, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, Norway, Oman, Qatar Singapore, the UAE, UK, and the US.
City-Wise Registration
The highest numbers of companies, i.e. 618 were registered in Islamabad, followed by 441 and 289 companies registered in Lahore and Karachi respectively. The CROs in Peshawar, Multan, Gilgit-Baltistan, Faisalabad, Quetta, and Sukkur registered 122, 65, 64, 37, 20 and 3 companies respectively.
