ISLAMABAD: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) in September registered 1,070 new companies, 74 per cent of which were registered within the first four hours of their application.
As compared to the corresponding month of the last financial year, this represents a growth of 50 per cent, raising the number of registered companies to 90,722.
The massive increase in the incorporation of new companies is the result of the SECP’s various reforms, i.e. the introduction of a simplified combined process for name reservation and incorporation, reduction of the fee, assistance of incorporation by the facilitation wings of Company Registration Offices (CROs) etc.
Around 73 per cent of companies were registered as private limited companies, while around 25 per cent were registered as single-member companies. Two per cent were registered as public unlisted, non-profit associations, foreign companies and limited liability partnerships (LLP).
The trading sector took the lead with the incorporation of 189 companies, construction with 142, services with 137, Information Technology (IT) with 107, tourism with 83, food and beverages with 45, real estate development with 34, corporate agricultural farming with 29, textile with 28, engineering with 26, education with 20, transport with 18, marketing and advertisement with 16, healthcare and pharmaceutical with 14 each, cables and electric goods with 13, auto allied and paper products with 12 each, logging, mining and quarrying with 11 each and 109 companies registered in other sectors.
Moreover, one foreign company was also registered by the CRO Islamabad.
Foreign investment has been reported in 34 new companies. These companies have foreign investors from, Australia, Belarus, China, Denmark, Germany, Iran, South Korea, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Russia, Thailand, and the United Kingdom (UK).
The highest numbers of companies, i.e. 374 were registered in Islamabad, followed by 296 and 195 companies registered in Lahore and Karachi respectively. The CROs in Peshawar, Multan, Faisalabad, Gilgit-Baltistan, Quetta, and Sukkur registered, 83, 43, 28, 27, 20 and 4 companies respectively.
