ISLAMBAD  -  The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry in collaboration with Pakistan Stock Exchange organised an investors and industry awareness programme to educate potential investors about the dynamics and working of the Stock Exchange.

The program sought to educate the business community about the potential opportunities for raising capital from the capital market for business expansion and growth. It was highlighted that capital market was an important source for mobilizing idle savings from the economy for further investments in the productive channels. The business community was also apprised of the operational, strategic and regulatory developments taking place at PSX.

Speaking at the occasion, Ahmed Hassan Moughal, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry said that capital markets were playing crucial role in mobilizing domestic resources for channeling them towards productive activities and stressed that PSX should come up with more attractive packages for SMEs to facilitate their fast development. He said PSX has developed a specialized SME Board for listing and trading of SMEs shares and it should create maximum awareness about this facility to the SMEs across the country so that they could raise capital from capital market to fund their growth and expansion needs.

Rafat Farid Senior Vice President and Iftikhar Anwar Sethi Vice President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry said that SMEs were the backbone of the economy and PSX should launch new investment avenues for them so that these business enterprises could raise interest-free capital for achieving better growth. They said to increase access to equity finance for SMEs, growing number of developing countries were creating specialized equity markets and stressed that PSX should consider on these lines. They said PSX should also help SMEs in documentation matters to facilitate their listing on capital market.

Speaking at the occasion, Asghar Abbas Naqvi, Regional Head Islamabad, Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) said that between January 2012 and May 2017, value of some stocks listed at PSX grew by 6-99 times. He said PSX was working to facilitate investors awareness for investing in the capital market so that the retail investors base could be further enhanced. He said PSX was the main source of increasing personal and national wealth and urged that more SMEs should list themselves on the stock exchange to maximize their business prospects.