ISLAMABAD
Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin said that Pakistan stock market earned the highest profit in ten years with an aggregate profit of Rs258 billion.
Taking to Twitter from his personal handle, Shaukat Tarin shared a graph from Securities and Exchange Companies of Pakistan (SECP) showing year on year growth of profits in the stock market after taxes.
He said that the stock market has secured aggregate profits of Rs258 billion in 2021, the highest ever during the last 10 years.
Separately, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said on Friday that Pakistan stock market has earned the highest aggregate profit worth Rs258 billion.
On his official twitter handle, the minister said that Pakistan stock market earned the highest profit in ten years despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Adviser to PM on Political Communication Shahbaz Gill also commented on the report and said that the statistics shared by the finance minister were meant for those who launched propaganda on the decline of the economy in the country.
He said in a message from his Twitter handle that other than an aggregate Rs258 billion profits, the overall volume of trade in the PSX remained highest as compared to the last four years.
It is pertinent to mention here that the companies listed at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) have paid the highest ever dividends in calender year 2021 amounting to Rs499.84 billion.
Spokesperson to Finance Ministry Muzzammil Aslam revealed this in a tweet, saying the amount of dividends remained 86.8 percent more on a year-on-year basis if compared with the calendar year 2020 when the amount stood at Rs267.608 billion.
According to details, the commercial banks paid the highest dividend of Rs139.17 billion in CY21 out of 32 sectors. The dividends from banks more than doubled during the period under review, increasing from Rs64.251 billion in 2020 despite the pandemic when interest rates remained low.
This was followed by oil & gas companies, which paid dividends of Rs71.127 billion in 2021 compared to Rs44.608 billion in 2020. The fertilizer sector stood at number three position with Rs59.01 billion dividend payment in 2021 against Rs47.96 billion paid during the last calendar year.
Next in line are sectors including power generation and distribution, food & personal care products, chemical, tobacco and automobile assemblers, with paid cash dividend of Rs34.058 billion, Rs26.021 billion, Rs25.697 billion, Rs20.44 billion, and Rs20.248 billion respectively. Other sectors, which paid more than Rs10 billion dividends, included oil and gas marketing companies, cement and textile composite.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index is currently trading at a PER of 5.0x (2022) compared to the Asia-Pacific regional average of 15.0x while offering a dividend yield of 8.9 percent versus 2.2 percent offered by the region.
