-----------------------
10/29/13, "Britain to become first non-Muslim country to launch sharia bond," UK Telegraph, Harry Wilson
"David Cameron to unveil £200m Sukuk at the World Islamic Economic Forum
in London on Tuesday." "Britain is set to become the first non-Muslim country to sell a bond that can be bought by Islamic investors in a bid to encourage massive new investment into the City.
David Cameron will say in a speech on Tuesday at the World Islamic Economic
Forum in London that the Treasury is drawing up plans to issue a £200m
Sukuk, a form of debt that complies with Islamic financial law.
.
.
The new sharia-compliant gilt will enable Britain to become the first
non-Muslim country to tap the growing pool of Islamic investments that is
forecast to top £1.3 trillion by next year.
.
.
The Prime Minister will say that it would be a “mistake” to miss the
opportunity to encourage more Islamic investment in the UK and that the City
of London should rival Dubai as a centre for sharia-compliant finance.
.
.
“When Islamic finance is growing 50pc faster than traditional banking and when
global Islamic investments are set to grow to £1.3 trillion by 2014, we want
to make sure a big proportion of that new investment is made here in
Britain,” Mr Cameron will tell an audience of senior officials from Islamic
countries.
Among those at the meeting are Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei, King
Abdullah of Jordan, Afghan president Hamid Karzai and Prince Salman bin
Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince of Bahrain.
The World Islamic Economic Forum has never been held before in a non-Muslim country and highlights the growing role London is playing in the Islamic finance industry.
The London Stock Exchange is preparing to launch an Islamic Market Index to help the managers of sharia-compliant funds identify new investment opportunities.
The UK’s plans to issue its own Sukuk could lead to billions of pounds of British gilts being sold to Islamic investors, enabling the Treasury to diversify away from its traditional sources of funding.
“For years people have been talking about creating an Islamic bond – or Sukuk – outside the Islamic world, but it’s just never quite happened,” Mr Cameron will say. “Changing that is a question of pragmatism and political will. And here in Britain we’ve got both.
To comply with sharia law, Islamic investors are forbidden to receive interest. Sukuks avoid this problem by ensuring the fixed return investors receive on the debt is linked to the profit generated by an underlying asset.
The value of Sukuks already listed on the London market has reached $34bn (£21bn) over the past five years with nearly 50 bonds quoted by the London Stock Exchange.
Sharia-compliant funds have already been used to fund some of the capital’s largest developments, including the Shard and the Olympic Village.
More than 20 banks currently offer Islamic financial products and services in the UK, more than any other Western country, with the number expected to grow further.
The Government has put securing links with growing financial centres in Islamic countries and fast-growing Asian markets at the heart of its plans for the City.
Earlier this month the Chancellor, George Osborne, announced a deal with China to make London a leading centre for the growing trade in renminbi-denominated assets and to make it easier for Chinese banks to set up investment banking operations." image of mosque from UK Telegraph, via Atlas Shrugs
===============================
"It failed to ask the classic headwaters question: what is the problem?..."That would have pointed to the Middle East’s regimes, and to our ruling class’ relationship with them, as the problem’s ultimate source."
10/20/11, "The lost decade," Angelo M. Codevilla, Claremont Institute
"At home, the American people are less free, less prosperous, more bitterly divided, and much less hopeful in 2011 than in 2001 because a decade of the War on Terror brought a government ever bigger and more burdensome, as well as “security” measures that impede the innocent rather than focusing on wrongdoers. Our ruling class justified its ever-larger role in America’s domestic life by redefining war as a never-ending struggle against unspecified enemies for abstract objectives, and by asserting expertise far above that of ordinary Americans....It failed to ask the classic headwaters question: what is the problem?...
That would have pointed to the Middle East’s regimes, and to our ruling class’ relationship with them, as the problem’s ultimate source. The rulers of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinian Authority had run (and continue to run) educational and media systems that demonize America. Under all of them, the Muslim Brotherhood or the Wahhabi sect spread that message in religious terms to Muslims in the West as well as at home.
That message indicts America, among other things, for being weak.
And indeed, ever since the 1970s U.S. policy had responded to acts of war and terrorism from the Muslim world by absolving the regimes for their subjects’ actions"...
.
The World Islamic Economic Forum has never been held before in a non-Muslim country and highlights the growing role London is playing in the Islamic finance industry.
The London Stock Exchange is preparing to launch an Islamic Market Index to help the managers of sharia-compliant funds identify new investment opportunities.
The UK’s plans to issue its own Sukuk could lead to billions of pounds of British gilts being sold to Islamic investors, enabling the Treasury to diversify away from its traditional sources of funding.
“For years people have been talking about creating an Islamic bond – or Sukuk – outside the Islamic world, but it’s just never quite happened,” Mr Cameron will say. “Changing that is a question of pragmatism and political will. And here in Britain we’ve got both.
To comply with sharia law, Islamic investors are forbidden to receive interest. Sukuks avoid this problem by ensuring the fixed return investors receive on the debt is linked to the profit generated by an underlying asset.
The value of Sukuks already listed on the London market has reached $34bn (£21bn) over the past five years with nearly 50 bonds quoted by the London Stock Exchange.
Sharia-compliant funds have already been used to fund some of the capital’s largest developments, including the Shard and the Olympic Village.
More than 20 banks currently offer Islamic financial products and services in the UK, more than any other Western country, with the number expected to grow further.
The Government has put securing links with growing financial centres in Islamic countries and fast-growing Asian markets at the heart of its plans for the City.
Earlier this month the Chancellor, George Osborne, announced a deal with China to make London a leading centre for the growing trade in renminbi-denominated assets and to make it easier for Chinese banks to set up investment banking operations." image of mosque from UK Telegraph, via Atlas Shrugs
===============================
"It failed to ask the classic headwaters question: what is the problem?..."That would have pointed to the Middle East’s regimes, and to our ruling class’ relationship with them, as the problem’s ultimate source."
10/20/11, "The lost decade," Angelo M. Codevilla, Claremont Institute
"At home, the American people are less free, less prosperous, more bitterly divided, and much less hopeful in 2011 than in 2001 because a decade of the War on Terror brought a government ever bigger and more burdensome, as well as “security” measures that impede the innocent rather than focusing on wrongdoers. Our ruling class justified its ever-larger role in America’s domestic life by redefining war as a never-ending struggle against unspecified enemies for abstract objectives, and by asserting expertise far above that of ordinary Americans....It failed to ask the classic headwaters question: what is the problem?...
That would have pointed to the Middle East’s regimes, and to our ruling class’ relationship with them, as the problem’s ultimate source. The rulers of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinian Authority had run (and continue to run) educational and media systems that demonize America. Under all of them, the Muslim Brotherhood or the Wahhabi sect spread that message in religious terms to Muslims in the West as well as at home.
That message indicts America, among other things, for being weak.
And indeed, ever since the 1970s U.S. policy had responded to acts of war and terrorism from the Muslim world by absolving the regimes for their subjects’ actions"...
.
No comments:
Post a Comment