What does Sharia Finance have in common with president Obama ? While both have Muslim roots, both serve universal understanding, social justice, partnership and prosperity.
“Islamic finance now extends beyond the traditional predominantly Muslim economies to become an increasingly important part of the international financial system. Islamic finance implicitly embraces strong core values and universally beneficial characters”, says Dr. Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Governor of Bank Negara, Malaysia.
Dr. Zeti was recently appointed by the United Nations General Assembly to serve on the Commission of Experts, a high-level task force of economic and finance specialists which is tasked with making recommendations for reforming the global economic system.
The UN Commission of Experts is headed by Joseph Stiglitz, the winner of the Nobel Prize for economics in 2001 and former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank who praises the Sharia-based system for focusing on fundamentals and for its superior ethics in comparison to American lending practices.
Globalise Islamic finance to weather economic crisis
Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Bank Negara governor
Malaysia calls for the internationalisation of the Islamic financial system in weathering the global economic crisis.
Malaysia’s Bank Negara governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz said Malaysia and Britain could optimise the potential synergies from such collaboration in tackling the financial turmoil. She said the move could also strengthen linkages between nations in preparing for the next phase of development of the global economic and financial systems.
“Both Malaysia and Britain can pave the way towards bridging Islamic financial markets between the East and the West,” she said in her keynote address at the start of the two-day London’s Eighth Annual Islamic Finance Summit. In the evening, Dr Zeti received an award for her outstanding contribution to Islamic finance by Euromoney magazine’s managing director Simon Brady.
Dr Zeti said the participation of international financial centres such as London would reinforce the trend of greater internationalisation of Islamic finance. She said this would help strengthen inter-linkages in the international Islamic finance system and the optimisation of the allocation of financial resources across borders. “Such a move will also contribute towards enhancing global financial stability through the greater diversification of risks,” she added.
Source: The Star
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