During the early hours of trading on Thursday, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) saw a positive trend as the KSE-100 Index increased by over 350 points.
As of 10am, the KSE-100 Index was being traded at 40,853.31, indicating a rise of 0.87% or 353.97 points. The bullish trend was observed across various sectors, including automobile, cement, chemical, commercial banks, and pharmaceuticals.
Experts in the market attributed the positive sentiment to the recently released current account figures, which showed a surplus of $654 million in March 2023. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) reported that this surplus was against a deficit of $36 million in February 2023, making it the first monthly surplus since November 2020.
Analysts believe that tighter monetary policies, fiscal measures, and administrative actions taken by the government contributed to the lower current account deficit during the current fiscal year.
However, investors are still waiting for the resumption of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme, which has remained stalled since last year.