LONDON: High Commissioner Mohammad Nafees Zakaria attended the London Sukuk and Fintech Summit 2019 in London on 2 July as a keynote Speaker.
Some of the main speakers at the summit included, John Glen MP, UK Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Oussama A. Kaissi (CEO, Islamic Corporation for insurance and investment and Export Credit), Dato Badlisyah Abdul Ghani (Chairman and ECO, Pay Halal), Charles Haresnape (CEO, GateHouse Bank), Abradat Kamalpour (Global Head of Islamic Finance and Fintech partner, Ashurst LLC), Dr. Mohamed Damak (Director, Global Head of Islamic Finance, and a number of others, who were to share their thoughts and experience.
High Commissioner spoke about the Pakistan Sukuk and the country’s contribution to the global and domestic Sukuk. He said that the Sukuk Market has been consistently gaining ground in Pakistan’s growing Islamic finance industry. There has been a concerted push by regulatory authorities in Pakistan to promote the Islamic finance industry on a sustainable basis.
Regular Sukuk issuance has been a key element of this strategy. He also briefed the participants about the various investment opportunities that were available in Pakistan. Zakaria highlighted that the changing global environment was shifting the global economic gravity to the Asian continent.
In this backdrop of the emerging trends, the High Commissioner gave an overview of regional economic developments, Pakistan’s strategically important location at the centre of the region to play the role as regional economic hub and energy corridor, China’s Belt and Road initiative, China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and economic opportunities offered by developmental needs of the countries in that region and half of the world’s population there as a consumer market.
The High Commissioner remarked that CPEC was the manifestation of Pakistan’s geo-strategic importance and location as a key trade route that connects landlocked Central Asia and Afghanistan, Western China and South Asia with West Asia and beyond through Arabian Sea. In terms of investment opportunities, Zakaria identified priority areas of the Government of Pakistan.
In this regard, he talked about Special Economic Zones (SEZs), tourism infrastructure development, energy sector, higher education, agriculture, pharmaceutical and IT sectors. The High Commissioner also offered his good offices for facilitating potential investors who intended to seek guidance and assistance.
The London Sukuk Summit is the world’s premier Sukuk and Islamic capital Markets gathering that took place from 02-03 July 2019.The Sukuk Summit attracts finance, business and industry leaders from around the world to discuss economic opportunities that were available in the Islamic financing. – NNI