Wednesday, november 27, 2013 khaleej times

38 Global ISlaMIC eCoNoMY SUMMIT

> DUBAI

Dubai Holdings, Al Fajer set to launch firmDubai Holding and Kuwait’s Al Fajer Re plan to launch a firm with $500 million of autho-rised capital in January to tap unserved demand in retakaful, or Islamic reinsurance.

There are only 19 retakaful firms globally, so Islamic insurers are often forced to transfer some of their risk to conventional re-insurers, according to a Dubai government study.

The new firm, Emir-ates Retakaful, will be set up in the Dubai International Financial Centre, said Fareed Lutfi, director of insurance services at Dubai Hold-ing. There will be scope to add more investors to the firm, he added.

> DUBAI

Investors plan EU Islamic bank in LuxembourgPrivate investors from Gulf Arab countries, including a royal family from the United Arab Emirates, plan to estab-lish the first full-fledged Islamic bank headquar-tered in the eurozone, an executive said on Tuesday. The investors aim to launch the ven-ture, named Eurisbank, in Luxembourg during the last quarter of 2014, said Ammar Dabbour, managing partner at Excellencia Investment Management.

> DUBAI

> DUBAI

Crescent plans Islamic property fund

Morocco seeks new regulations by end of 2014

Australian fund manager Crescent Wealth plans to launch an Islamic fund investing in commercial property next year as it expands its range of products, its top execu-tive said. “We are talking about a major fund, about probably between A$300 million to A$1 billion ($275 million to $920 million),” Talal Yass-ine, managing director of Crescent Wealth, told Reuters at the Global Is-lamic Economy Summit in Dubai. “The yield will have to be on market, that would be 7 to 12 per cent,” he added.

The firm currently has just A$20 million in as-sets across four Islamic funds which include cash, real estate and domestic and interna-tional equities. It expects to add another A$20 million to A$30 million by the end of this year, Yassine said.

Compiled from Reuters

Draft Islamic bank-ing and insurance regulations have been prepared in Morocco and could be passed by parliament before the end of next year, an Islamic finance execu-tive said on Monday.

“The draft laws have been finalised and submitted to the parlia-ment,” Said Amaghdir, chairman of the Moroc-can Association for Participative Finance Professionals, an Islamic finance business asso-ciation, told Reuters.

“We hope the valida-tion of the law will be for an Islamic banking window and then for full-fledged takaful (Islamic insurance),” Amaghdir said.

ADIB seeks land rule change to allow foreign holdersdubai — Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, or ADIB, said it’s seeking changes in local land ownership rules that could open ownership of shares of the emirate’s biggest Shariah-compliant bank to foreigners.

Land ownership is essential to Muslim banks as financing is based on hard assets, ADIB chief executive officer Tirad Mahmoud said in an interview at an Islamic finance summit.

“A company with foreign shareholding cannot now own land in Abu Dhabi, a rule which ADIB is discussing with the emirate’s economic depart-ment,” he said.

The UAE, of which Abu Dha-bi is the biggest, and neighbour-ing Qatar were upgraded to emerging-market status in June by MSCI Inc, fuelling specula-tion foreign investors will chan-nel more funds into the coun-tries. MSCI, whose equity indexes are tracked by investors with about $7 trillion in assets, will promote the two nations from frontier- market status as of May 2014.

“From the shareholders’ per-spective, the board of directors they have absolutely no issue at all to open up the bank” to for-eign ownership, Mahmoud said.

Dubai Islamic Bank, said No-vember 20 it’s reviewing its for-eign ownership limit.

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank last month reported a 20 per cent increase in third-quarter profit to Dh395.5 million ($108 mil-lion). — Bloomberg

Sandhya D’Mello

dubai — Dubai will continue to promote the Islamic economy in an aggressive way as it intends to gain from the tremendous potential it offers, said a top official of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the organiser of the Glob-al Islamic Economy Summit.

“Dubai will aggressively pro-mote Islamic economy under the directives of His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Mak-toum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. The summit aimed to cre-ate awareness among people of the benefits of the Islamic economy ac-cording to Shariah standards. Though there are debates about the same, we will continue to pro-mote the Islamic economy so that we can benefit from the sector’s potential opportunities,” said Ab-dul Rahman Saif Al Ghurair, chair-man of the Dubai Chamber.

Endorsing similar views, Essa Kazim, chairman of the Dubai Fi-nancial Market, said: “The summit is only the extension of Dubai’s culture to share the knowledge on a platform to the industry. This is also reflected in Dubai’s selection as host of the 10th session of the World Islamic Economic Forum 2014 — one of the world’s largest gatherings to share knowledge, ex-perience and expertise in Islamic economy. However, the potential

New rules, unification and innovation key to progressIslamic finance offers a new dimension to development of Dubai

Sandhya D’Mello

dubai — The ICD-Thomson Reu-ters Islamic Finance Development Indicator, or IFDI, was officially launched on Tuesday in Dubai.

The indicator is a numerical mea-sure representing the overall health and growth of the Islamic finance industry worldwide.

The IFDI was officially launched by Khaled Al Aboodi, chief executive officer, Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector, at the Global Islamic Economy Sum-mit (GIES) to expand the scope of Thomson Reuters’ universe of Is-lamic finance content, research and news analysis.

“The indicator is designed to as-sess how well the industry has ad-dressed its religious, economic, le-gal, ethical and discretionary responsibilities. It provides simpli-fied, quantified, development, knoweledge, corporate and social responsibility, governess and awareness,” Al Aboodi said.

The concluding day of summit also witnessed the findings from IFDI, developed in collaboration with the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector, or ICD, the private sector

development arm of the Islamic Development Bank, or IDB.

As per the analysis, the size of the Islamic finance industry globally was $1.35 trillion in 2012. This was based on a bottom-up analysis of dis-closed financial statements of Islam-ic institutions. The largest compo-nents of the industry were Islamic banking with $985 billion in assets, and sukuk with $251 billion.

Russell Haworth, managing di-rector, Middle East & North Africa, Thomson Reuters, said: “The IF-DI’s findings demonstrate the size and breadth of the Islamic finance economy and will serve as a critical reference point for its growth going forward. The ability to accurately size the Islamic finance industry, based on disclosed financial infor-mation as opposed to assumptions and conjecture, is key to providing meaningful analysis aimed at de-veloping the industry.”

The findings also highlighted that Malaysia was the largest Is-lamic finance economy, with total

Islamic finance assets of $412 bil-lion and has the largest sukuk mar-ket, valued at $171 billion and the second largest Islamic banking market, valued at $194 billion.

The Saudi Arabia was second in terms of Islamic finance assets, with assets of $270 billion and the Kingdom also has the largest Is-lamic banking market, with total Islamic banking assets of $217 bil-lion. Further there are 1,003 finan-cial institutions operating in the Islamic finance space.

“Accurate information on the size of Islamic financial industry, its institutions and performance, based on bottom up analysis, is one of the key outputs of IFDI. Unlike other sources that are focused on specific countries or regions, or uti-lise sample testing and assump-tions to develop their estimates, the IFDI provides accurate infor-mation on the entire Islamic fi-nance space and its sub-compo-nents,” added Al Aboodi.

— sandhya@khaleejtimes.com

Rafe Haneef, CEO, HSBC Amanah, and Hussain Al Qemzi, Group CEO, Noor Investment Group and Noor Islamic Bank, during a panel discussion at the summit.

Islamic Finance Development Indicator launched in Dubai

Sandhya D’Mello

dubai — The Global Islamic Economy Summit unveiled ‘Thomson Reuters Zawya Islamic — a first of its kind solution for Is-lamic finance and Shariah-sensi-tive investors. Zawya Islamic will be an add-on to Zawya Markets — the leading Middle East and North Africa business informa-tion and investment opportunities solution.

Powered by data from Thomson Reuters and partnering with global Shariah and Islamic Finance mar-ket players, standard setters and authorities, Zawya Islamic makes Shariah-compliant investment, decision making and networking with the Islamic markets easier amalgamating — Fatawa, stan-dards, regulations, legal documen-tation and product guidance notes, intelligently connected with schol-ars and instruments.

Further the solution gives deep fundamental data on global Su-kuk, Islamic funds, Islamic banks, financial institutions and Shariah-compliant equities; with focus on Islamic finance news, research, indices, money market and benchmark rates.

It is the first platform in the world to provide both deep market data about private companies, as well as Shariah-compliant stocks, funds and sukuk, with access to the largest database of legal and Shariah content required for a fully Shariah-compliant workflow.

The Zawya Islamic was offi-cially launched at the Summit by Dr M. Azmi Omar, director gen-eral, Islamic Research and Train-ing Institute, Islamic Develop-ment Bank, Saudi Arabia. “Islamic Research and Training Institute is a strategic partner with Thomson Reuters for various ini-tiatives. The new platform will al-low finance professionals to com-pare the performance of various Islamic asset classes and instru-

ments, conduct the required Sha-riah-compliance verification, and draft the necessary Islamic con-tracts. All these are offered along-side data and information serving the broader macro-economic en-vironment.

“For all the growth the industry has experienced in the last few years, it remains a small segment of the financial sector in most markets. Furthermore, the indus-try continues to diverge in differ-ent regions, and innovation in product development remains stagnant. As a result of this, we find that many of the challenges and issues facing the industry a decade ago remain unresolved today,” added Omar. The summit also announced the launch of new business channel ‘Amilin’ dedi-cated to Islamic markets.

— sandhya@khaleejtimes.com

Zawya Islamic set to help Shariah-sensitive investors

Delegates at the Global Islamic Economy Summit, which concluded in Dubai on Tuesday. — KT photos by Shihab

of Islamic finance needs to be tapped to fullest and capitalise from the opportunities it offers to the sector. Islamic finance offers a new dimension to process of de-velopment of Dubai’s economy.”

Hisham Al Shirawi, second vice-chairman of the Dubai Chamber, concluded the second day of the summit with three recommenda-tions to drive forward the Islamic economy.

He said it is vital to develop a regulatory framework to govern all aspects of the Islamic economy, that unification of the term halal was achieved and innovation to

take Dubai’s Islamic economy vi-sion to the next level.

Speaking at the closing ceremony of the summit, which attracted more than 3,500 delegates over its two days, Al Shirawi said the private sector has a major role to play in leading innovation. A new genera-tion of consumers are demanding and more sophisticated for varied halal products and services, and that companies need to change to cater to this new consumer base.

The private sector was urged to go beyond compliance to achieve excellence and to develop more sophisticated marketing tools to

increase awareness among both Muslim and non-Muslim consum-ers alike.

“Over the past two days, we have debated and discussed the ele-ments and challenges of the global Islamic economy. However, for us to make any progress in this new economic landscape we must achieve three major recommenda-tions. Firstly, the need for a proper regulatory framework governing all aspects of the Islamic economy is vital. Secondly, the unification of the term halal. And thirdly, innova-tion. This is both across the spec-trum of the Islamic economy and more specifically in the halal prod-ucts and services available to con-sumers. We live in a world where 60 per cent of the Muslim popula-tion is under the age of 25. The language they speak and how they communicate is drastically differ-ent to that of previous generations,” Al Shirawi said.

“The Islamic economy should be inclusive and not exclusive, and we must aim for more than compliance by setting our sights on being the best standard internationally. Stan-dardisation and certification are therefore crucial to the future devel-opment of the global Islamic econo-my. This is not only across cities, but across countries and continents, as the Muslim world is varied both cul-turally and economically. Dubai is seeking to bring the Muslim world together under the concept of one global Islamic economy.”

— sandhya@khaleejtimes.com

We will continue

to promote the Islamic economy so that we can benefit from the sector’s potential opportunities

Abdul Rahman Saif Al Ghurair

The new platform

will allow finance professionals to compare the performance of various Islamic asset classes

Dr M. Azmi Omar

IFDI provides accurate information on the entire Islamic

finance space and its sub-componentsKhaled Al Aboodi