Asia | Pakistan's economy

Feeling undervalued

Political gloom makes economic optimism hard to sustain

Oct 30th 2003|karachi

THE world's best-performing stockmarket in 2002 is about to put on weight. The sale to the public, from November 10th, of up to 5% of the shares in the state-owned Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC) will lift the total capitalisation of the Karachi Stock Exchange by about 10%, to about $20 billion. This highlights three truths about Pakistan's economy: there has been a stockmarket boom; there is a government committed to liberalising reform, including privatisation; but the market and the economy remain too small for anybody outside Pakistan to care very much.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Feeling undervalued”