KARACHI, Oct. 15 (TNS): Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has expressed concern over the ailing Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) and may announce a bailout package to revive the market in the next 15 to 20 days.
Asia’s best performing market in 2016 has witnessed a drop of 25% in the KSE-100 index in the last four and a half months to 39,846.78 points on Friday from an all-time high of 52,876.46 points on May 24.
A delegation of some 25 PSX officials and brokers, which called on Abbasi at the Governor House, recommended formation of a fund worth Rs20 billion that would be injected into the PSX to revive the market, meeting participants said.
Besides, they highlighted several issues forcing the market to perform poorly. These were mostly related to taxation, which they believe was directly hurting the market since the budget announcement at the end of May.
Seasoned broker Aqeel Karim Dhedhi hoped for corrective measures to be taken by the prime minister in a week or 10 days.
“The prime minister has agreed to be the chief guest at the PSX Top 25 Companies Awards, which we are planning to hold in the next 15 to 20 days,” said Arif Habib, a former chairman and one of the senior brokers.
Meeting participants said Abbasi asked them to submit the raised issues in writing. “We will submit the highlighted issues along with recommendations in two to three days,” Habib added.
The premier ordered the constitution of a committee under the chairmanship of Sindh Governor Mohammad Zubair, who has remained a key member of the PML-N economic team.
Other possible members of the committee were Habib and Dhedhi, it was learnt.
The committee was tasked with taking a deeper look into the issues and submit its report along with possible corrective measures as soon as possible.
The participants said when the PSX crashed in 2008, the then government constituted a fund worth Rs20 billion to revive the market and gave the money to National Investment Trust (NIT) for investment in state-owned listed firms.
The strategy did not only work, but NIT returned the Rs20-billion soft loans to banks in addition to achieving earnings for it and its unit holders. “NIT still manages the fund with investment size of Rs9 billion,” a participant said.
