No good news for stock market investors

No good news came for stock market investors in the national budget for fiscal year 2023-24 although they have been passing a challenging period in a bearish market.

The stock market stakeholders have been demanding for widening the tax gap between listed and non-listed companies by lowering the corporate tax for listed companies in order to encourage more companies to go public.

However, the government reduced the gap by 2.5 percentage point last year and this was retained for the upcoming fiscal year.

Moreover, the government proposed to increase duty on clinker imports, which would have an impact on listed cement makers' profits and thus lead to stock investors of these companies getting lower dividends.

Import duty on raw materials of tobacco companies were also proposed to be increased which may reduce the profit margin of the listed companies.