KARACHI: The stock market continued its progress on Tuesday and remained in the green zone right after the opening bell. By 10:03 AM, the benchmark Index of the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) jumped over the 40,000 mark. The KSE-100 index gained 1.24 per cent or 509.61 points. The index reached 41,700.38 points.
According to the CEO of Dalal Securities, Siddique Dalal, the gain in the PSX was due to the rising expectations that the issue of circular debt in the gas sector would be resolved. As a result, Pakistan Petroleum Ltd, Oil & Gas Development Corporation Ltd, Sui Northern Gas Pipelines, and Sui Southern Gas Company Ltd delivered good performance and pushed the KSE-100 index. Dalal securities added that the cement sector also performed well.
Regarding buying, Mr Dalal said that many companies were buying back the shares, which was a good sign. He further added that if the government resolved the issues of circular debt and International Monetary Funds (IMF), the investors will regain confidence.
Senior Manager Equity of Topline Securities, Mohammad Arbash, said that the improvement in market was due to the expectations of the government to finalise the agreement with IMF.
Meanwhile, the IMF is proving to be a hard nut to crack as the global money lender has asked Pakistan to do more efforts to secure the loan tranche. The technical talks between IMF and Pakistan took place in Islamabad. During the talks, IMF kept pushing Pakistan to hike the General Sales Tax (GST) to 18 per cent on all items.
According to calculations by IMF, the increment in the GST will collect Rs39 billion. The money lender also wants Pakistan to abolish the income tax exemption and also impose the Flood Levy in order to meet the revenue target set by FBR for the current fiscal year. Media reports told that the government of Pakistan agreed to reduce the energy circular debt by Rs1,000 billion.
