Shares at the Pakistan Stock Exchange’s benchmark index shed more than 450 points on Tuesday as the country seeks a fresh bailout International Monetary Fund package to improve the economy.

According to the PSX website, the KSE-100 index lost 486.82 points, showing a negative change of 0.62 per cent, closing at 78,084.24 points against 78,571.06 points on the last working day.

A total of 591,511,522 shares were traded during the day as compared to 512,337,206 shares the previous day, whereas the price of shares stood at Rs17.177 billion against Rs18.894 billion on the last trading day.

As many as 436 companies transacted their shares in the stock market, 163 of them recorded gains and 222 sustained losses, whereas the share price of 51 companies remained unchanged.

The three top trading companies were Kohinoor Spinning with 74,333,884 shares at Rs11.57 per share, WorldCall Telecom with 47,382,319 shares at Rs1.26 per share and Cnergyico PK with 43,914,580 shares at Rs3.98 per share.

State Bank of Pakistan Governor Jameel Ahmed told Reuters on Tuesday that Pakistan aims to raise up to $4 billion from Middle Eastern commercial banks by the next fiscal year to plug external financing gaps.

He stated that the country was also in the “advanced stages” of securing $2 billion in additional external financing required for IMF approval of a $7 billion bailout programme.

Pakistan and the IMF reached an agreement on the loan program in July, subject to approval from the IMF’s executive board and the country obtaining “timely confirmation of necessary financing assurances from Pakistan’s development and bilateral partners”.