Switzerland, Hong Kong and UK pulled out on August 07 amounts worth about $1.5 million from their Special Convertible Rupee Accounts (SCRAs) maintained in Pakistan for portfolio investment.
Switzerland withdrew $1.1 million followed by Hong Kong and UK who withdrew $0.3 million and $0.1 million respectively. The overall impact of these withdrawals on the cumulative total was, however, limited to $0.6 million only because of fresh arrivals of $0.9 million from USA.
As a result of the foregoing developments, cumulative withdrawals of Switzerland during the year so far amounted to $10.2 million and those of Hong Kong to $1 million. UK's cumulative flows stood lower at $1.27 million on 7th August compared with $1.35 million on 4th. No other worth reporting development took place in the case of any other investor country. No update was available after 8th August, which provided figures for the 7th.
On the stock front, KSE 100 Index, which continued rising amid leaps, relatively smaller jumps and a couple of back-steps between 24th July and August 07 to reach 10,847 from a low of 10,350, slipped to 10,828 on 8th August. Profit taking was stated to be the major factor behind the decline. SBP General Index of Share Prices which stood at over 452 on 7th August also declined by few points to 450 on 8th. Aggregate market capitalisation, in the meanwhile, declined from Rs 2,992 billion on 7th August, a figure short of only a few billion rupees from the landmark Rs 3 trillion, to Rs 2,985 billion on 8th August.