A total of 841 companies received foreign direct investment mainly from the investors of developed countries and the respective country of the headquarters during the last financial year, according to the Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan’s (SECP) Annual Report for FY23.
Leading the pack was China with investment in 448 companies, followed by US (46) UK (36), Afghanistan (35), Germany (32), Turkey, and South Korea 16 each, the UAE (15), Singapore (11), Nigeria (10), Spain (9), Canada, and Hongkong with 8 each, Norway (7), Australia, Iran, Malaysia, South Africa, and Switzerland 6 each, Egypt, Japan, Jorden, Lebanon, the Netherland, and Thailand 5 each, and 84 companies from other countries.
Furthermore, during the financial year, 33 foreign companies were registered in Pakistan representing nations such as China, the UAE, the UK, Azerbaijan, Hong Kong, Italy, South Korea, Singapore, Bahrain, and Germany, and others contributing to the country’s business landscape.
In FY23, the corporate sector witnessed significant progress as SECP registered 27,746 new companies, reflecting a remarkable 4.7 percent growth as compared to 3.8 percent in the previous year. This brings the total number of registered companies to an impressive 196,805.
The strategic use of automation and process optimization has materialized, with over 99.8 percent of enterprises registering online and 24 percent completing registration on the same day.
In terms of sector-specific distribution, the current year’s registered companies exhibited a notable presence in various sectors.
The construction and real estate sectors took the lead with the incorporation of 4,527 companies, closely followed by the IT sector with 4,038 companies, trading with 3,539 companies, services with 2,928 companies, food and beverages with 1,106, tourism with 1,101, education with 1,048, e-commerce with 910 companies, agriculture with 732, and marketing and advertisement companies with 672. The remaining companies were registered in other sectors.
Among the companies registered during FY23, approximately 58 percent were registered as private limited companies, 39 percent as single-member companies, and the remaining three percent were registered either as public unlisted, not-for-profit associations, trade organizations, foreign companies, or limited liability partnerships.
Breaking down the figures further, out of the 27,746 companies registered in this period, 9,264 were registered in Islamabad, 10,904 in Punjab, 4,251 in Sindh, 2,136 in KP, 538 in Balochistan, and 653 in Gilgit-Baltistan.
