Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Sunday voiced his difficulty over the poor displaying by the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), which had once held the difference of being one of the top-appearing bourses within the location.
During a meeting with a joint delegation of the PSX and Mutual Funds Association of Pakistan (MFAP), which called on Dar on the Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) headquarters in Islamabad, the minister confident the traffic that their issues approximately the dearth of buyers would be addressed in the imminent finances.
He also promised the delegation that steps would be taken to encourage funding within the country.
The PSX turned into represented with the aid of its managing director and CEO Farrukh Hussain and Chief Financial Officer Ahmed Ali. Mir Adil and Arif Qadri represented the MFAP.
The finance minister was accompanied by means of Minister of State for Finance Dr Aisha Ghaus Pasha, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Finance Tariq Bajwa, SAPM on Revenue Tariq Mehmood Pasha, Reforms and Resource Mobilisation Commission (RRMC) Chairman Ashfaq Tola, FBR Chairman Asim Ahmad and other senior officials from the finance ministry and Revenue Division.
State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Jameel Ahmad additionally attended the huddle.
During the meeting, representatives of the MFAP highlighted the increase of Shariah-compliant mutual funds. They proposed that quick-term Shariah-compliant sukuk ought to be launched.
The MFAP representatives advised positive measures to be taken in the imminent budget to sell mutual budget. The representatives of the PSX shed mild on the erosion of marketplace capitalisation over the last six years.
They stated the inventory marketplace become a fairly documented section and primary contributor to the country wide exchequer. They additionally gave certain proposals to encourage people to invest in the inventory marketplace.
Dar hoped that the PSX could opposite the trend and once more come to be one of the pinnacle acting inventory markets inside the vicinity.
The PSX’s KSE-one hundred – a benchmark for marketplace overall performance – became Asia’s top-appearing index in 2016, much to the pleasure of the heaps of buyers, who thought the golden run could hold.
After near forty five% return in greenback phrases for the common investor inside the preceding yr, clean money poured in.
However, the yr 2017 proved to be a nightmare. Equity-primarily based budget posted terrible returns inside the range of 10% to 20%, while brokerage houses had to be content material with low volumes that placed a dent on their income.
Overall, the KSE-one hundred Index posted an absolute negative return of 15.34% all through the yr. In dollar phrases, it became a negative go back of 20%.
