Home Business Sharif’s Win Takes Karachi Stock Exchange to All-Time High

Sharif’s Win Takes Karachi Stock Exchange to All-Time High

by AFP
Rizwan Tabassum—AFP

Rizwan Tabassum—AFP

Business community bullish about economy.

Karachi stocks hit an all-time high on Monday following Nawaz Sharif’s strong victory in the May 11 elections, which revived hopes the steel tycoon’s pro-business agenda could spark an economic revival.

The benchmark index of top 100 shares rose 1.6 percent to 20,232 points in early trade, surpassing the 20,000 mark for the first time, after Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) emerged with a clear lead over its rivals.

The election results defied analysts’ predictions of a weak Parliament as the PMLN looked able to form a government without the help of its traditional rival the Pakistan Peoples Party and new challenger Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.

“We were fearing a hung Parliament, and a weaker and unstable government to come into power as a result of the elections,” said Mohammad Sohail, chief of Topline Securities, a leading brokerage house in Karachi.

Investors are hopeful of an economic revival under Sharif, whose pro-business policies earned him a good reputation among traders and industrialists during his two previous tenures in the 1990s. “He liberalized the economy by launching a privatization program and liberalized the financial sector allowing foreign investors to step into Pakistani capital markets,” Sohail said.

Though his privatization agenda was never fully implemented, Sharif has promised in early interviews to pick up where he left off from.

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1 comment

Arshad Shafi May 13, 2013 - 1:24 pm

If all the business community fully supports Shareef’s Government, then not only he will be able to remain in government for its full term of five years, but also the business in Pakistan would keep rising to its maximum extent.

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