British Deputy High Commissioner Belinda Lewis has said that huge investment potential exists in Pakistan and UK can provide expertise in various sectors. Speaking at breakfast session at CDC House on Wednesday, she informed the participants that as part of her assignment she was exploring the potential markets for bilateral investment in number of sectors particularly financial sector.
"I have met with number of business executives in Pakistan and next week I will be visiting UK where meetings with top financial institutions will be held to discuss the outcome," she said. Earlier, Chief Executive Officer of Central Depository Company of Pakistan (CDC), Muhammad Hanif Jakhura, in his presentation highlighted the performance of CDC and its role in capital market. He informed that 414 brokers were actively engaged in the trading in Pakistan's equity market. There are 559 listed companies with $76 billion market capitalisation.
He said CDC had diversified its business to ensure sustainability. CDC offers services such as retail investor account services; trustee and custodial services for mutual funds, pension funds and Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT); share registrar for issuer companies and centralized information sharing solutions for insurance industry. He said CDC was the only entity in Pakistan other than banks that had been given access to Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) by State Bank of Pakistan.
He said total net assets in the custody of CDC were valued at Rs 625.7 billion or $6 billion. The number of shares held by CDC stood at Rs 130 billion and the value of these share is Rs 5.3 trillion or $50.5 billion. Briefing about the future plans of the CDC, Jakhura said that as part of development of Agri-Commodity market in Pakistan Collateral Management Company was being planned as subsidiary. Banks will be financing farmers based on its crops deposited in CMC system in electronic form called Electronic warehouse Receipt EWR.
Insurance Repository system will be formed where all insurance policies are proposed to be maintained in centralized server which can be accessed by all pertinent stakeholders. This solution will ensure accessibility of insurance on historical basis and will allows access to the said information even several years after issuance. Developmental REIT will be collective investment scheme involving real estate investments entailing the construction and selling of property. Another initiative, Professional Clearing Members will be introduced for performing custody and settlement functions for brokers who will be allowed to perform trading functions only.