KARACHI – The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) has reached all-time high on Thursday as the South Asian country and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) near to reach staff level agreement for release of next tranche under $7 billion loan programme.
The KSE-100 index has gained 1,058.90 points with 0.9% change as it hit historic high 119,032.92 points till 9:29 am as compared to previous close of 117,974.02 points.
The development comes as the IMF delegation wrapped up its visit to Pakistan for an economic review on a positive note.
In an official statement, the global lender said it and the Pakistani authorities made significant progress toward reaching a Staff Level Agreement (SLA) on the first review under the 37-month Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF).
IMF team Nathan Porter said, “Program implementation has been strong, and the discussions have made considerable progress in several areas including the planned fiscal consolidation to durably reduce public debt, maintenance of sufficiently tight monetary policy to maintain low inflation, acceleration of cost-reducing reforms to improve energy sector viability, and implementation of Pakistan’s structural reform agenda to accelerate growth, while strengthening social protection and rebuilding health and education spending,” he said.
Porter said progress has also been made in discussions on the authorities’ climate reform agenda, which aims to reduce vulnerabilities from natural disasters-related risks, and accompanying reforms which could be supported under a possible arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF).
A day earlier, a total of 544,200,130 shares were traded at PSX during the day as compared to 449,484,737 shares the previous trading day.
As many as 315 companies transacted their shares in the stock market, 208 of them recorded gains and 102 sustained losses, whereas the share price of 5 companies remained unchanged.
The three top trading companies were Pak International Bulk with 52,151,863 shares at Rs11.05 per share, Pak Elektron with 36,133,139 shares at Rs48.14 per share and WorldCall Telecom with 30,884,952 shares at Rs1.40 per share.
