Mohamed El-Beltagy, head of the Egyptian Islamic Finance Association, stated that many international banks await the issuance of the sukuk law in Egypt to inject investments to the country. These banks offered bids totaling billions of dollars to invest in the Egyptian market, he affirmed.
On the sidelines of the symposium held at the Islamic Economics Center at the United Bank, El-Beltagy added that the first target of sukuk will be Egyptian expatriates, then the international financial institutions and banks and the third target will be the local investors which totals from 8 to 10 millions.
Sukuk are used to finance the improvement of Egyptian economy, not selling the state’s assets, he stressed. The disagreement over the sukuk draft law does not mean that the law is not complaint with Islamic Sharia principles, he added.
“Egypt had to issue sukuk from years as these instruments have proven success in western and Islamic countries. Officials has to raise the people’s awareness on sukuk so as to ease concerns raised by some media that foreigners can own the country’s sovereign assets such as the Suez canal through sukuk.
Sukuk are better than treasury bills as the former finance developmental projects, while the latter just trade in debt, he added. The value of sukuk in UAE reached US$ 200 billion.
El-Beltagy added that Sukuk Al-Ijara is the easiest and best sukuk structure, but it requires conducting many studies. Sukuk Al-Ijara accounts for 70% of sukuk globally especially in Malaysia which is a leader in issuing sukuk.
