Pakistan Stock Exchange: K-P chief minister pushes for Peshawar branch

Wants to facilitate capital market investors of the province

PESHAWAR: Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has welcomed establishment of the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) by merging the three stock exchanges of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad and urged the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) to set up a branch of PSX in Peshawar for facilitating investors of the province.

Speaking at an awareness programme regarding PSX on Thursday, the chief minister said the K-P government was not only encouraging the private sector but it had started involving the sector in services delivery, administration and policy-making aspects of the public sector including health, industries, communications and education.



He said after spending two and a half years introducing legislations, reforms and policy initiatives, the K-P government was now in an appropriate position to offer feasible development projects for investment, particularly in the energy, mineral and communications sectors.

He assured investors that they would be given fool-proof security and other necessary facilities for such projects.

The chief minister said the investment environment had been made quite favourable in K-P by introducing industrial and mineral policies and the proposed capital market hubs by PSX would further enhance investment opportunities in the province.

“Our government established one-window service centres to facilitate industrial investors and offered them sizeable subsidies on bank loans, acquisition of land, transportation of machinery and electricity bills,” Khattak added.

Speaking on the occasion, Arif Habib Group Chairman Arif Habib remarked, “The lucrative incentives announced by the K-P government for industrialisation is a wise and novel approach for ensuring rapid economic growth and overcoming unemployment.”

He appreciated the stance the province was taking to secure its rights with reference to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.

SECP Chairman Zafarul Haq Hijazi said capital market hubs of the SECP would be established in smaller cities. One such hub had already been set up in Abbottabad.

While welcoming the K-P government’s initiative, he stressed that he would push companies to create a capital market in K-P. “With such rich natural resources,financial groups and companies would happily invest in the province.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2016.

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