Third African Islamic Finance Summit from 19th

LAHORE: AlHuda will hold third African Islamic Finance Summit in Dar es Salam - Tanzania on May 19-20, 2016. Delegates of more than 11 countries are expected to participate.

Muhammad Zubair Mughal, Chief Executive Officer, AlHuda CIBE, said that the summit will help to open gates for Foreign Direct Investment in the country.

The aim of this summit is to explore the untapped market of Africa and to adopt the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities in Islamic Finance industry of Africa.

Expansion of Islamic finance industry in Africa is expected to bring favorable new opportunities in trade progress and business interactions with the Middle East.

Islamic finance can potentially play a part in facilitating more trade opportunities between Africa, Middle East and rest of the world with the involvement of more global and Islamic banks from both regions.  He said that increasing trend of Islamic finance events in Africa is evidence, that Africa is moving forward in this industry.  This is quite a wrong conception that Islamic finance is only taking its roots in North African countries eg, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria, etc, rather its potential exists in the whole of African continent.

Islamic banking and finance is growing rapidly in Nigeria, Libya, South Africa, Kenya, and Morocco, while Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia have already taken good initiatives in the mentioned field.

He said that there is also a rising trend of Islamic banking and finance in Senegal, Mauritania, Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana and Ethiopia.

Analysing the Islamic financial industry of Africa, he said, according to estimates the total volume of Islamic finance in Africa is 78 Billion USD, which is less than 5 percent share of global Islamic finance industry.  Of that, Islamic banking has 81 percent share, Islamic Fund seven percent, Sukuk five percent, Takaful six percent, and Islamic microfinance has only one percent share in the African Islamic Finance Industry. While more than 96 Islamic banks, 29 Islamic Funds, 31 Islamic Microfinance Institutions and more than 41 Takaful companies are working over there.

He emphasised that the increasing trend of poverty in Africa can be reduced by utilising Islamic microfinance methodology and the multilateral organisations, eg, African Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, GIZ, IFAD and World Bank.