By Adnan Rafique
ISLAMABAD: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) registered 2,354 new companies in March 2022, raising the total number of registered companies to 165,688. Total capitalization (paid-up-capital) with regards to newly incorporated companies for the current month stood at Rs3.5 billion.
Foreign investment has been reported in 53 new companies during March 2022. These companies have foreign investors from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Korea South, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Norway, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Switzerland, Thailand, UAE, the UK and the USA.
In March, nearly 63 percent companies were registered as private limited companies, while 34 percent were single member companies. Remaining 3 percent companies were registered as public unlisted companies, not for profit associations, trade organizations and limited liability partnership (LLP). About 99.6 percent companies were registered online and 215 foreign users were registered from overseas.
The real estate development & construction sector took the lead with incorporation of 458, information technology with 365, trading with 258, services with 232, education with 110, food and beverages with 75, tourism with 72, textile with 68, corporate agricultural farming with 60, engineering with 57, commerce, and marketing & advertisement with 55 each, chemical with 47, pharmaceutical with 46, healthcare with 45, mining and quarrying with 37, transport with 36, and 333 companies were registered in other sectors.
As a result of integration of SECP with FBR and various provincial departments, 2,033 companies were simultaneously registered with FBR for generation of NTN, 47 companies with EOBI, and 16 companies with PESSI/SESSI
