KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia remains a forerunner in global sukuk with the global outstanding sukuk amounting to over US$148 billion as at June 2013, which represents 60.4 per cent of the total global sukuk.
Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the number reflected Malaysia’s rapid growth in sukuk compared with its number of only US$1.5 billion of global sukuk in 2001.
“Being a conducive environment for sukuk transactions, I certainly believe that Malaysia has what it takes to attract more institutions from all regions of the global aiming to tap Malaysia’s Islamic finance marketplace and the pool of liquidity,” he said at the opening of the 10th Kuala Lumpur Islamic Finance Forum (KLIFF 2013) yesterday.
He said credit must be given to Bank Negara Malaysia, the Securities Commission Malaysia, Syariah scholars and the Islamic financial industry community for their efforts to bring Malaysia’s Islamic finance marketplace to the current level of sophistication.
He said this was in line with the vision for a comprehensive and progressive Islamic finance marketplace, which has grown from strength to strength for over 30 years.
Muhyiddin said as Malaysia continued to grow its Islamic finance industry, there was a need to revisit and review any particular areas of divergence in order to come up with a better and more acceptable solution. — Bernama