KARACHI: Pakistan raised more than Rs20 billion ($71 million) through stock market listings in the first half of 2026, the country’s securities regulator said on Wednesday, as Islamabad pushes to deepen its capital markets and encourage companies to raise money from investors rather than relying primarily on bank loans.
Pakistan’s economy has traditionally depended on commercial banks to finance businesses, while relatively few companies raise capital by selling shares to the public through the stock market. Policymakers have been trying to broaden the country’s financial markets to give companies more funding options, attract new investors and support long-term economic growth.
“During the first half of 2026, nine companies raised over twenty billion rupees through Initial Public Offerings across various sectors,” the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) said in a statement published by Radio Pakistan.
An initial public offering, or IPO, is the process through which a private company sells shares to the public and becomes listed on a stock exchange, allowing it to raise money from investors for expansion and other business activities.
According to the regulator, the companies that completed IPOs came from manufacturing, petroleum, dairy, Islamic finance, poultry and real estate.
The SECP attributed the increase in fundraising activity to reforms aimed at simplifying the process of raising capital and obtaining stock market listings.
Separately, the regulator also announced Pakistan’s first regulatory framework for Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) mutual funds, a type of investment fund that channels investors’ money into companies that meet environmental, social responsibility and corporate governance standards.
“The new framework will enable asset management companies to launch ESG mutual funds,” the SECP said.
It said equity ESG funds would invest in companies included in the Pakistan Stock Exchange Sustainability Index, while debt ESG funds would invest in green, social and sustainability-linked bonds and other debt instruments.
The regulator said the framework would require such funds to invest at least half of their assets in qualifying ESG investments and included measures intended to prevent “greenwashing,” the practice of overstating environmental or sustainability credentials to attract investors.
The SECP said the framework formed part of a broader sustainable finance agenda that also includes ESG disclosure guidelines, sustainability reporting standards and Pakistan’s Green Taxonomy, a classification system designed to identify environmentally sustainable economic activities.
The regulator said the reforms were intended to strengthen investor confidence while encouraging Pakistani companies to adopt internationally recognized environmental, social and governance standards.
