The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), during the month of August 2015, registered 406 new companies witnessing an increase of 33 percent as compared to same month of last year.
Around 92 percent companies have been registered as private limited companies while around 5 percent companies were registered as single member companies. Three percent of the companies were registered as public unlisted, associations not-for-profit, trade organisations and foreign companies.
The trading sector took lead with the incorporation of 63 companies followed by services with 51, construction with 35, information technology with 31, tourism with 21, corporate agricultural farming and education with 16 each, power generation and engineering with 15 each, textile and communications with 13 each, real estate development with 12, chemical with 11 companies and 94 companies registered in other sectors. Moreover, two foreign companies were also registered by the CROs in Islamabad and Karachi.
Foreign investment has been reported in 23 new companies. These companies have foreign investors from Bahrain, Belgium, Burma, China, Denmark, Georgia, Germany, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, South Korea, Turkey, UAE and the UK.
These companies are from communications, construction, education, engineering, food and beverages, mining and quarrying, power generation, services, steel and allied, textile, trading, transport and wood and wood products sectors.
During the year, the highest numbers of companies, 150, were registered at the Company Registration Office (CRO), Lahore, followed by 110 and 89 companies registered at CRO Islamabad and Karachi respectively. The CROs in Peshawar, Multan, Faisalabad and Quetta registered 24, 20, 8 and 5 companies respectively.
