Islamabad - The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) registered 521 new companies in March 2015, witnessing an increase of 24 per cent as compared to same period of last year.
The SECP registered 3,588 new companies during the first three quarters (July to March) of current fiscal year 2014-2015. In the new incorporations, around 88% companies have been registered as private limited companies, around 8% companies were registered as single member companies and four percent of total incorporated companies were registered as public unlisted, associations’ not-for-profit, under section 43 and foreign companies.
The services sector took lead in new incorporations with 76 companies, followed by trading with 54, information technology with 46, construction with 43, tourism with 39, corporate agricultural farming with 25, education with 21, pharmaceutical with 20, real estate development with 15, communications, food and beverages and fuel and energy with 14 each, healthcare with 13, power generation with 12, paper and board and textile with 11 each and transport with 10 companies. Moreover, three foreign companies were also registered in Karachi and Islamabad. Foreign investment has been reported in 20 new companies. These companies have foreign investors from Afghanistan, Australia, China, Denmark, Egypt, Germany, Palestine, Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka, Turkmenistan, UK and the US.
These companies are from import/export, food and beverages, construction, transport, education, information technology, internet service provider, trading, sugar and allied, services sectors.
The highest numbers of companies, i.e. 169, were registered at the Company Registration Office (CRO), Islamabad, followed by 153 and 118 companies registered at CRO Lahore and Karachi respectively. The CROs in Multan, Peshawar, Faisalabad, Quetta and Sukkur registered 37, 21, 13, 8 and 2 companies respectively.
In March, 237 companies filed returns for an increase in the authorized capital, with total authorized capital increment of Rs37.7 billion. In addition, 147 companies filed returns for increase in the paid-up capital with total increment amounting to Rs. 9.96 billion.