The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) registered 2,504 new companies, including 66 having foreign investment, in June 2021, showing a growth of 63 percent as compared to the number of companies registered during the corresponding period of the last year. With the registration of 2,504 new companies, the total number of registered companies has increased to 145,913, said the SECP in a statement on Friday. The SECP said that 99 percent of these were incorporated online and 45 percent of applicants were issued registration certificates the same day, whereas 203 new foreign users were registered from overseas. Of the newly registered companies, 65 percent were registered as private limited companies, 31 percent as single-member companies and four percent as public unlisted companies, not-for-profit associations, foreign companies and limited liability partnerships (LLP). The SECP said that total capitalisation (paid-up-capital) of newly incorporated companies in June amounted to Rs3.3 billion. The construction & real estate sector took the lead with the incorporation of 474 companies, trading with 382, IT with 275, services with 216, e-commerce with 129, food & beverages with 105, textile with 86, corporate agricultural farming with 76, education with 66, engineering, and market & development 54 each, pharmaceutical with 50, healthcare with 45, tourism with 39, mining & quarrying, and transport with 36 each, chemical with 34, auto & allied with 33, cables & electric goods with 31, logging with 27, communication with 26, power generation with 24, paper & board, and cosmetics & toiletries with 19 each, steel & allied with 18, broadcasting & telecasting, and fuel and energy with 16 each, wood & wood products with 13 and 105 companies were registered in other sectors, according to the SECP data. Foreign investment has been reported in 66 new companies. These companies have foreign investors from Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, China, France, Germany, Ghana, Hong Kong, Iran, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Oman, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia Republic, Sweden, Syria, Turkey, the UK, Uruguay and the US. The highest numbers of companies, i.e. 810 were registered in Islamabad, followed by 807 and 394 companies registered in Lahore and Karachi respectively. The CROs in Peshawar, Multan, Faisalabad, Gilgit-Baltistan, Quetta and Sukkur registered 174, 127, 98, 62, 22, and 10 companies respectively, said the SECP.