About three million businesses in Pakistan operate as non-corporate entities and there is an urgent need to get them incorporated so that they become part of the formal and documented corporate sector, with the vision of 'Pakistan Incorporated.' SECP Chairman Muhammad Ali made these remarks while concluding a two-day Registrars' Conference on the theme 'sharing knowledge, sharing successes,' which ended on Saturday.
He urged the participants to intensify their efforts to encourage all businesses in Pakistan to corporatise, and said "The automation is the key to public facilitation and it should remain our focus." He said that being the public face of the SECP, the Company Registration Offices (CROs) played a key role, and appreciated the efforts of the CROs in implementing the SECP's reform agenda, vowing to make the conference an annual feature.
The conference was aimed at sharing ideas and knowledge on elevating the role of the registrar, both as a regulator and facilitator. It provided a useful forum for interaction, planning and devising future strategy for registrars' working at the SECP front end offices i.e. CROs.
The first day of the conference focused on the interaction among registrars, defining their roles, celebrating success and planning to work towards future. The second day focused on the implementation of an action plan and sharing of knowledge to achieve collective success and co-ordination among the registrars. During the conference, a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis of the registrars' function was performed, on the basis of which an action plan was devised and responsibilities were assigned for its implementation. Tahir Mahmood, the Commissioner, Company Law Division, congratulated the registrars working across the country on their contribution to the development of the corporate sector and its sizeable growth. Sharing his expectations for the conference, he highlighted that it was an important step in the essential process of interactive co-operation among regulators and a tool to better understand the practical problems enabling the SECP to respond quickly with the best possible solutions.
Nazir Ahmad Shaheen, Executive Director, Corporatization and Compliance Department, presented the performance review, targets with a special focus on moving towards a paperless environment and analysis of operational matters to find possible solutions. Other discussion areas were best international practices, co-ordination among the registrars and other departments of the SECP.-PR