Pakistan’s paradox: bombs, blood and record profit
By Mark Bendeich
KARACHI (Reuters) - A little more than six years ago, immediately after the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities, few sane investment advisers would have recommended Pakistani stocks.
They should have. Their clients could have made a fortune.
Since 2001, the nuclear-armed South Asian country, blamed for spawning generations of Islamic militants and threatening global security, has been making millionaires like newly minted coins.
As Western governments have fretted about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling into the hands of militants, the Karachi Stock Exchange’s main share index has risen more than 10-fold.
And it is not just that Karachi is a thinly traded market, able to be dragged skyward at time by speculators. Profits have taken off as well.
Even last month’s assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, and the brief but terrifying tornado of violence it unleashed, failed to make much more than a dent in the market.
Businessmen are more worried than brokers, but all agree it will take more than Bhutto’s death to destroy this boom, which has been based on open-door investment policies and privatisation.
“It’s sad, and it does affect the business, but I guess it’s been happening for so long that people just get used to it,” shrugged Omer Sabir, who sells luxury sports cars from upwards of $100,000 (50,000 pounds) each at Karachi’s only Porsche (PSHG_p.DE:
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