LARGEST US PENSION FUND TERMS PAKISTAN SAFE FOR INVESTMENT
Tuesday February 7, 2006, 11:04 am

KARACHI, Feb 7 Asia Pulse - The largest pension fund in the US, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, (CalPERS), has raised its ratings for Pakistan by 20 basis points to 1.8, near to the permissible ceiling for foreign investors to comfortably park their funds in the domestic market.

CalPERS, known as financial wizards in the world, has raised the ratings of Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines, and lowered its views on India and Sri Lanka, suggesting that it would adjust the allocation of its US$193.8 billion global portfolio accordingly.
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CalPERS upped its total score for Pakistan as a permissible investment destination by 0.20 point to 1.8, raised its Indonesia rating by 0.13 to 2.0 and the Philippines by 0.13 point to 2.1.

"This review is good news for Indonesia as well as Pakistan, which seems very likely to qualify for CalPERS investment in the near future based on the outlook for continued strong growth supported by ongoing structural economic reforms," said ING's chief economist for Asia, Tim Condon.

The 54 percent surge of Karachi Stock Exchange in 2005 has made it Asia's top performer, along with South Korea which rose the same amount, but the North Asian country's rating slipped by 0.07 point to 2.5 mainly as political stability was deemed worse.

(PPI)

http://au.biz.yahoo.com/060207/17/ivd8.html

Expect the stocks in Pakistan to rise even futher..but the govt must keep an eye on it