ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar appreciated the close cooperation among key national financial regulatory institutions which, he said, enabled and facilitated the rapid placement of necessary infrastructure for secondary market trading of government securities which include Treasury Bills (T-Bills), Pakistan Investment Bond (PIB) and Government of Pakistan Sukuk.
He was presiding over a meeting attended by representatives of Capital Market Institutions, Ministry of Finance and the State Bank of Pakistan to finalize soft launch of Trading of Government Securities in the Stock Exchange from January 31, 2014.
On the occasion, KSE Managing Director Nadeem Naqvi briefed the Finance Minister on progress regarding regulatory approvals and potential readiness of the Bond Automated Trading System (BATS) of KSE.
The meeting was informed that State Bank of Pakistan would issue a circular permitting trading of the Government Securities while the Central Depository Company (CDC) had made necessary for the trading of Government Securities.
The Finance Minister said that this was the first step towards a historic milestone in the country’s financial architecture which will significantly deepen capital markets while enabling the average citizen to participate and invest in liquid and safe government securities which can be bought and sold easily with no hassles. This will provide savers with a new, low volatility and highly liquid asset class to deploy their hard earned savings,” he informed and added that historically it has been seen that the return on government securities was closely tagged to inflation rate thus helping to preserve the real value of savings.
He said that the trading of government securities would help in development of an independent secondary capital market as well as provide an alternate to retail investors.
Mr Dar directed the KSE chairman to launch an awareness campaign to sensitize general public to choices now available to them for investment.
Secretary Finance Waqar Masood, Advisor to the Finance Ministry Rana Asad Amin, Karachi Stock Exchange Chairman Munir Kamal, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan Chairman Tahir Mehmood and Executive Director State Bank of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Malik also participated in the meeting.
