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Dr. Zamir Iqbal, Chief Financial Officer of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), rang the market-opening bell to mark the listing of a $1.25 billion Sukuk on Nasdaq Dubai. 53% of the five-year Sukuk issuance was acquired by investors in the EMEA region, while 47% went to investors based in Asia, with an annual return of 2.261%. The IDB is one of the largest Sukuk issuers on Nasdaq Dubai, with a current total of eight listings valued at $10.25 billion. The bell-ringing ceremony was attended by Hamed Ali, CEO of Nasdaq, as well as Azahari Bin Abd Kudus, Capital Markets Manager of the IDB. Dubai is a leading international centre for Sukuk activity, with Sukuk listings in the Emirate currently totalling $52.47 billion.

The value of sukuk being issued in the GCC has been falling, but there is still opportunity in the market, Zamir Iqbal, lead financial sector specialist at the World Bank said. The potential lies in the huge infrastructure financing, but a proper legal and tax environment for the structuring of the sukuk and the SPV laws must be established. There’s already excess liquidity in the market, and banks are looking for high-quality, highly-rated sukuk, Iqbal noted. The International Monetary Fund said in November that the GCC region was suffering from a lack of availability of Sharia'a compliant financial instruments, or tradable assets, leading to excess liquidity and to an uneven playing field for Islamic banks.

Emerging markets must create the valid legal conditions and a “level playing field” to gain access to Islamic finance at the international level, Zamir Iqbal, the head of the World Bank Global Islamic Finance Development Center, has told Anadolu Agency.

“Islamic finance uses the techniques of securitization. This means that a good enabling environment for structured finance is needed”, Iqbal said, while speaking at a G-20 forum on Islamic finance in Istanbul.

Securitization, or structured finance, is the process of taking assets that produce income and using them to create security. In Islamic finance, all securities are linked to income-producing assets.