The Bahrain Monetary Agency (BMA) is to begin dealing in Islamically structured commodity instruments. Short-term commodity transactions have been developed with the Kingdom's Islamic banking industry.
The initiative is the product of mutual cooperation between BMA and Shamil Bank of Bahrain. The transactions have been structured in such a way as to allow BMA to engage in commodity contracts through Islamic banks.
“Although the new instrument has been developed in cooperation with one Islamic bank, we hope it will serve the entire Islamic financial industry in future,” said BMA’s Executive Director of Banking Operations, Waleed Abdulla Rashdan.
The BMA has been at the forefront of developing and issuing Islamic securities. A rolling program of monthly issuance of short term securities, Sukuk Al-Salam, has been in place since 2001. So far, the BMA has made 22 issues of Sukuk Al-Salam, worth a total of $550 million, while five Ijara issues have totaled $380 million.
The Kingdom of Bahrain is a major international financial center, which has the highest concentration of Islamic financial institutions in the world. At present, 26 Islamic financial institutions and five industry-support organizations operate from the Kingdom. In addition, the BMA licenses 34 Islamic mutual funds. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
