KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange managed to end the week with decent gains on back of positive expectations from the budget announcement at the end of the trading week. With the positive outcome and favorable budgetary measures, analysts and traders expect market to rally towards new highs in coming weeks.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index gained 93.02 points, advancing to 48,304.72 points at the end of the week from 48,211.70 points at the start on Monday.
“Overall budget seems favorable for the market,” Khurram Schezad, CEO Alpha Beta Core, said. With some specific measures such as reduction in capital gain tax and plan to phase it out in future will give investors’ confidence and attract fresh investements, he added.
“Capital gain tax reduction has been reduced from current 15 per cent to 12.5 per cent for the next fiscal year,” Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin has announced during the budget speed yesterday evening. He said Pakistan’s capital market has been resilient against the global slowdown due COVID-19 waves because of the investment-friendly policies of the government.
In a pre-budget statement regarding country’s economy Prime Minister Imran Khan has said the government has steered the country out of difficult times and now it will witness sustainable growth and development. He also said there will be now wealth generation and people will get job opportunities. On the economic front, he said the people will continue to hear good news.
Minister Shaukat Tarin in post-budget press conference today said the government has presented a total growth budget and their challenge is to stabilise growth as the government had presented Rs8,478 billion budget for financial year 2021-22, set the tax target at an ambitious Rs5,829 billion.
The fundamentals looks favorable as the corporate announcements at the June end and growth centric budget is likely to support market gain fast, while reopening of markets after COVID third wave will also help industries to regain growth momentum, traders and analysts said. It seems that the consolidation period for both market and country’s economy is about to turn into a growth period, they added.
