May 5, 2021
ISLAMABAD: There are 31 families in Pakistan dominating Pakistan’s stock market, indicating the number of influential and wealthy families had gone up from 22 to 31 since the country’s independence. It was the crux of the highly important research paper by former Deputy Chairman Planning Commission and Vice-Chancellor PIDE Dr. Nadeem Ul Haq and Amin Hussain. The explosive research paper stated that Mahbubul Haq famously pointed to 22 families owning Pakistan. But, in 2018, when the data was collected, 31 families dominated the KSE. The paper stated: Pakistan’s stock market tends to make headlines, sometimes because of record highs that make it the ‘best performing market of the region’, and sometimes because of the crashes. However, the degree to which it contributes to capital formation in the country is not a topic of study, while the ensuing ownership and governance structure is hardly ever made a part of public discourse. One such study concluded that ar