Sukuk Between Theory & Practice Conference Kicks Off

“Sukuk between Theory and Practice” conference, organized by United Bank, is launched on Monday. The conference is held in cooperation with Al-Azhar University and under the auspices of Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed El-Tayeb and will be attended by United Bank’s employees and Al-Azhar University’s scholars such as Mohamed Ashmawy, chairman of United Bank; Dr. Osama El-Abd, president of Al-Azhar University; Dr. Mohamed Gomaa, dean of Faculty of Islamic Studies; and Ali Gomaa, former Grand Mufti of Egypt and member of Al-Azhar’s Senior Scholars Council.

Mohamed Ashmawy stated that sukuk law came after a societal dialogue that conducted by Islamic and economics experts for months.

“Egypt has delayed in issuing such law as Baitak Research revealed that the total volume of sukuk issuance in the Middle East region rose 20-30% to reach US$ 131 billion in 2012,” he added.

He affirmed that there must be a large bank leading the sukuk issuance process in order to make it succeed, but there is no Mega Islamic bank in Egypt.

The banks’ role is offering support in conducting feasibility studies and marketing sukuk in local and international financial markets as well as selling sukuk, contributing to subscribing and issuing mutual funds.

This is the third conference organized by the United Bank on sukuk law.