The Ambassador of the European Union, Mr Lars-Gunnar Wigemark paid a working visit to the Lahore Stock Exchange. Mr. Wigemark and his team were given an update of the Pakistan’s Capital Market and to what level has The Lahore Stock Exchange been contributing to gear up the economy’s growth in terms of both local and foreign investment by the MD and the CEO of the Lahore Stock Exchange, Mr. Aftab Ahmad Chaudhry. During the meeting, Mr. Wigemark affirmed that EU would like to promote the objectives of increased regional trade in South Asia to boost trade and take advantage of the mutual benefits likewise.
Mr. Wigemark also stated that given the current challenges facing to the country with respect to the economy and the socio – political factors affecting the capital market, Pakistan’s capital market has yet managed to grow and this further brings positive prospects in the future, in particular to the upcoming elected government that is expected to revise the economic and the social reforms. He supported Mr. Aftab’s opinion to foresee increase in the foreign investment especially investment coming from the expatriates to double from its current figure that is calculated to be USD 16 Billion.
Mr. Aftab highlighted on the performance of the capital market of Pakistan by stating some basic points to evaluate the performance such as the market capitalization that amounts to US Dollar 44 billion contributing to 17% of the economy’s GDP. He also shared the ranking of the global market performance study that has ranked the Pakistan’s market performance to be on the top. During the information session, MD Lahore Stock Exchange also highlighted the steps taken by the LSE contributing to build a mechanism that has produced more transparency in the trading of the shares as well as to secure the investment of the investors at the hands of the brokers complete control. Some of the major steps include, Demutualization of the Exchange, Investor’s Awareness program, Financial Literacy program as part of the Corporate Social Responsibility, establishing of separate bodies such as CDC, Central Depository Company and NCCPL, National Clearing Company of Pakistan that have been setup to further protect the investor’s capital by giving more rights to hold access to their account and to encourage the trade of the shares to take place by the investor himself.
Lahore Stock Exchange is a fully electronic and completely automated stock exchange of Pakistan. LSE is the only domestic exchange to have more than one trading floors, besides being the only exchange in the region to have established a unified order book with another domestic exchange.