KARACHI – The capital market recorded recovery of more than 1000 pointsduring the outgoing owing to much awaited amnesty scheme announcement withlot of incentives offered by the government to regularize the cash flowsand assets.

The KSE-100 index gained nearly 1077 points or 2.4 percent closing at 46638points where focus of the investors were mostly to the amnesty scheme wherethe government gave incentives to Pakistani who held their wealth abroad orinside after paying 2 percent to 5 percent of their assets, dollar, gold orsecurities.

The market during the entire week witnessed positive trend in anticipationof announcement of Amnesty scheme and government steps for resolution ofexternal account woes.

During the outgoing week, cement and banking sector emerged as the topperformers, contributing 195/194 points respectively, as investorssentiments improved in cement sector post recent jump in cement prices byRs50/bag and investors’ expectations of passing of amnesty flows throughbanking channel.

Total shares turnover in the week showed jump of 8 percent, while valuetraded increased by 34 percent. Among participants, mutual funds remainednet buyers of 45.4 million dollars whereas, banks remained net sellers of15.9 million dollars. Moreover, foreign investors remained net buyer of 3.6million dollars.

The week remained full of Budget-FY19 related news flows such as (1)proposal of cut in taxes for salaried class, (2) government eyeing fiscaldeficit at 4.6% for FY19 with PSDP cut on cards, (3) Pakistan BanksAssociation proposing 2 percent collection charges given to banks forperforming WHT agent and withdrawal of Super Tax and (4) Fertilizerindustry urging government to abolish GIDC on feed gas. Moreover, news ofgovernment considering to abolish regulatory duty on steel wiped outpartial gains of the Steel sector during the week, as the sector gained 2.9percent on week on week basis only.