ISLAMABAD: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) registered a total of 26,502 new companies in FY 2021-22, which is an increase of 4% from the previous fiscal year. The number of registered companies with the SECP is now 172,206.
Most of these were registered in the real estate development and construction sector, with 4,791 new companies. This was followed by 3,760 new IT companies and 3,534 new trading companies.
The company’s end-to-end digital services enabled 99.5% of the new companies to register online while 1,640 users registered from overseas.
64% registered as private limited companies, while 33% were single member companies. The remaining 3% registered as public unlisted companies, not-for-profit organisations, foreign companies and limited liability partnerships (LLP).
In July alone, the total capitalisation (paid-up capital) amounted to PKR 42.4 billion.
The SECP has made several efforts to fully digitise the registration process, as well as the issuing of company registration certificates and national tax numbers (NTN).
An online portal has also been created to facilitate companies in opening corporate accounts. A WhatsApp helpline is also available to answer or resolve any queries.
These measures have caused significant improvement in the ease of doing business in Pakistan, which can be reflected in the growing number of new incorporations.
There has been foreign investment in 672 new companies, namely from Afghanistan, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Burma (Myanmar), Canada, China, Cyprus, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Korea South, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the UAE, the UK, Ukraine, the USA, Vietnam, Yemen and Zambia.
With SECP’s integration with the FBR and different provincial departments, 25,042 companies were registered with the FBR for NTN generation, 539 with EOBI (Employees’ Old-Age Benefits Institution), 234 with PESSI (Punjab Employees Social Security Institution) and SESSI (Sindh Employees Social Security Institution), and 343 with the Excise and Taxation Department.
