Islamic Finance In Russia
Adalet Djabiev is the founder and CEO of Al-Shams Capital, an Islamic investment and financial company incorporated in Russia and regulated by the Russian Securities Commission. Although the Russian Securities Commission doesn’t have explicitly recognize Islamic finance, CEO Djabiev says that Al-Shams is by its nature and through the company’s articles of memorandum, a Shariah-compliant company.
Djabiev hopes that Al-Shams will gain traction as a platform for Islamic financial institutions from the Middle East to invest into the Russian equity market. He also hopes to use his base in Russia to invest in other countries of the former Soviet Union such as Kazakhstan.
The company’s license allows it to offer brokerage, dealership and trust management services to clients in Russia. Al-Shams is now applying for a fund management license for mutual funds, which he hopes to use to offer investors Islamic-style savings instruments.
One of Djabiev’s current projects is a private equity investment into a national network of Halal food production and distribution retailers.
according to The Economist, there are over $822 billion of sharia-compliant assets under management worldwide. Islamic finance is one of the fastest-growing segment of the global financial system and sales of Islamic bonds may rise by 24% to $25 billion in 2010.
There are between 100 million and 120 million Muslims in the CIS and Eastern Europe. Countries such as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and the Kyrghiz Republic have already started to introduce enabling legislation to facilitate Islamic financial products in their jurisdictions.
[Via Arab News]
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