abdulhakeem
08-11-07, 12:24 AM
11/8/2007
KARACHI: Chairman National Commission for Government Reforms, Dr Ishrat Hussain has underlined that Islamic finance could be used as a powerful tool for inclusive growth and amelioration of conditions of poor in the Muslim world.
He expressed these views while addressing the 3rd World Asia Islamic Capital Conference, on Wednesday. He also stressed upon the need of exploring unique feature of Islamic finance for the larger good of society, particularly in the context of economic growth and poverty alleviation. “Most of the attention on Islamic finance has so far been focused on the regulatory framework, products and services offered comparability with conventional finance, risk management characteristics, shariah compliance beside of expansion and penetration issues while very little work has been done to explore the unique features of Islamic finance,” he said.
“Economic growth can either be broad based in which the benefits are shared widely and particularly by bottom quintile of the population or highly skewed where the benefits accrue disproportionately to a small elite group of society. The capitalism was the predominant economic model which relies on private property rights of the day that has made impressive strides in improving the living standards of the nations across the world,” he remarked.
“But capitalist model fails in equitable distribution of income or benefits from growth,” Dr Hussain underscored. He shared that IMF recent study showed that income inequalities were rising despite the unprecedented gain made by China in quadrupling its per capita income in a quarter century and brought poverty to less than 10 per cent and during this period regional, inter-personal, rural-urban and gender income disparities were widened and getting worsen.
“Empirical analysis shows that technology rather than trade and financial globalisation are behind these growing inequalities,” Dr Hussain said adding that whatever, explanatory factor behind this phenomenon, the dangers in form of social implosion high degree of discontent among certain segments of population who feel they were left out of the process and consequently instability, violence and in some instances acts of terrorism are assuming serious proportions.
He said that poverty alleviation and growth in economy could possibly be achieved through Islamic economic system and maintained that Islamic economic system had not been allowed to function due to interplay between cultural, historical and economic factors.
He noted that during last eight years the number of borrowers the banking system in Pakistan had impressively rose from one million to 5.5 million but this number can easily be doubled if Islamic banks play their role positively.
Access to agriculture credit, including livestock fisheries, dairy, SME Finance small mining and transport enterprises, low cost housing finance etc, provided by Islamic bank will relax credit constraints for those individuals and businesses facing today in expanding their businesses or investing in productivity or building assets.
Earlier speaking on the occasion Chairman Islamic Capital Partners Khalid Rafi said that seeing the current tremendous growth of Islamic banking sector one can say that it would achieve 12 per cent share in overall financial sector in Pakistan. He said that conventional banks were also launching Islamic banking windows.
“Our total banking system deposit are just under $60 billion of which Islamic banks managing around $2 billion, and the Islamic banking industry was gearing up to capture 12 per cent market share by 2012 which would translate to an additional amount of $15 billion in Islamic deposits during next fiver years,” he said and added that the Islamic banking industry in Pakistan had also launched an aggressive outreach campaign and had added 140 branches in just 18 months and total branch network had extended to 218.
President and CEO Meezan Bank Ltd., Irfan Siddiqui stressed that Islamic banks had to put extra efforts to attract their customers. Irfan Siddiqui said that consumers did not merely come for Islamic products as they expect quality and satisfactory service as well.
Tariq Hussain CEO Emirates Global Islamic Bank, Executive Chaudhry Mohammad Wasi, Deputy GM Qatar Islamic Bank DM Qureshi Chairman Ankaa Group, Hasan Bilgrami CEO Bank Islami Pakistan, Hussain Dawood Chairman Dawood Group, Nadeem Mujtaba MD Gulf Ventures Corporations, Najmul Hasan GM Corporate Meezan Bank, Nasim Beg CEO Arif Habib Investment Management, Naz Khan, CEO KASB Funds Ltd, Mir Muhammad Ali CEO UBL Funds Managers also spoke on the occasion.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=79419
KARACHI: Chairman National Commission for Government Reforms, Dr Ishrat Hussain has underlined that Islamic finance could be used as a powerful tool for inclusive growth and amelioration of conditions of poor in the Muslim world.
He expressed these views while addressing the 3rd World Asia Islamic Capital Conference, on Wednesday. He also stressed upon the need of exploring unique feature of Islamic finance for the larger good of society, particularly in the context of economic growth and poverty alleviation. “Most of the attention on Islamic finance has so far been focused on the regulatory framework, products and services offered comparability with conventional finance, risk management characteristics, shariah compliance beside of expansion and penetration issues while very little work has been done to explore the unique features of Islamic finance,” he said.
“Economic growth can either be broad based in which the benefits are shared widely and particularly by bottom quintile of the population or highly skewed where the benefits accrue disproportionately to a small elite group of society. The capitalism was the predominant economic model which relies on private property rights of the day that has made impressive strides in improving the living standards of the nations across the world,” he remarked.
“But capitalist model fails in equitable distribution of income or benefits from growth,” Dr Hussain underscored. He shared that IMF recent study showed that income inequalities were rising despite the unprecedented gain made by China in quadrupling its per capita income in a quarter century and brought poverty to less than 10 per cent and during this period regional, inter-personal, rural-urban and gender income disparities were widened and getting worsen.
“Empirical analysis shows that technology rather than trade and financial globalisation are behind these growing inequalities,” Dr Hussain said adding that whatever, explanatory factor behind this phenomenon, the dangers in form of social implosion high degree of discontent among certain segments of population who feel they were left out of the process and consequently instability, violence and in some instances acts of terrorism are assuming serious proportions.
He said that poverty alleviation and growth in economy could possibly be achieved through Islamic economic system and maintained that Islamic economic system had not been allowed to function due to interplay between cultural, historical and economic factors.
He noted that during last eight years the number of borrowers the banking system in Pakistan had impressively rose from one million to 5.5 million but this number can easily be doubled if Islamic banks play their role positively.
Access to agriculture credit, including livestock fisheries, dairy, SME Finance small mining and transport enterprises, low cost housing finance etc, provided by Islamic bank will relax credit constraints for those individuals and businesses facing today in expanding their businesses or investing in productivity or building assets.
Earlier speaking on the occasion Chairman Islamic Capital Partners Khalid Rafi said that seeing the current tremendous growth of Islamic banking sector one can say that it would achieve 12 per cent share in overall financial sector in Pakistan. He said that conventional banks were also launching Islamic banking windows.
“Our total banking system deposit are just under $60 billion of which Islamic banks managing around $2 billion, and the Islamic banking industry was gearing up to capture 12 per cent market share by 2012 which would translate to an additional amount of $15 billion in Islamic deposits during next fiver years,” he said and added that the Islamic banking industry in Pakistan had also launched an aggressive outreach campaign and had added 140 branches in just 18 months and total branch network had extended to 218.
President and CEO Meezan Bank Ltd., Irfan Siddiqui stressed that Islamic banks had to put extra efforts to attract their customers. Irfan Siddiqui said that consumers did not merely come for Islamic products as they expect quality and satisfactory service as well.
Tariq Hussain CEO Emirates Global Islamic Bank, Executive Chaudhry Mohammad Wasi, Deputy GM Qatar Islamic Bank DM Qureshi Chairman Ankaa Group, Hasan Bilgrami CEO Bank Islami Pakistan, Hussain Dawood Chairman Dawood Group, Nadeem Mujtaba MD Gulf Ventures Corporations, Najmul Hasan GM Corporate Meezan Bank, Nasim Beg CEO Arif Habib Investment Management, Naz Khan, CEO KASB Funds Ltd, Mir Muhammad Ali CEO UBL Funds Managers also spoke on the occasion.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=79419