Islamic finance's biggest event returns to Dubai

Close to 1,000 of the world's top Islamic finance practitioners from more than 40 countries attended the two International Islamic Finance Forum events in Dubai and Istanbul during 2003.

The first Forum of 2004 will take place from 6 to 9 March in Dubai and the organisers predict that it will be the biggest and most successful yet.

"The International Islamic Finance Forum has its imitators, but in bringing together pioneering international policymakers, business leaders and the world's leading Islamic scholars for open and highly topical debates, the Forum has no equal," said the Institute for International Research (IIR), the Forum organisers.

The international Islamic finance industry has been growing at a projected rate of 15% a year and is conservatively estimated to be worth something in excess of US$250 billion.

The International Islamic Finance Forum (www.iiff.net) series, started two years ago by the Dubai offices of the IIR, has provided a growing networking focus for the industry ever since. It is also the most significant event in the Islamic finance attracting worldwide media attention. A total of 17 TV companies covered the Istanbul event.

"Commercially-minded, practitioner-focused and aimed at furthering the development of the world's fastest growing financial sector, the Forum is unchallenged as the most important international networking event in the calendar of the multi-billion dollar global Islamic finance industry," said Forum director Chris Mullinger.

"At each Forum, participants learn of new developments and opportunities, make new contacts, discover new business streams and make deals. Many return to each and every Forum after discovering the unique value they offer."

The Forum is known as the premier business-to-business event in the industry and dubbed "the Islamic finance equivalent of the Davos World Economic Forum". Previous venues apart from the United Arab Emirates each year have been Geneva, Switzerland, and Istanbul, Turkey.

"The all-encompassing nature of the Forum will be reinforced at Dubai 2004 - the fifth event in the series - with more groundbreaking debate and leading edge contributors. We confidently predict the Dubai 2004 Forum will be the biggest ever," Mullinger said.

The Dubai 2004 event has attracted high level international associations and sponsorships. The event is being run in association with Dow Jones Indexes of the USA. The Islamic Market family of indexes is the broad DJ Islamic Market Index (DJIM-Global) with 1,600 plus companies with a market cap of $9 trillion.

The Saudi Economic & Development Company Ltd. (SEDCO) are also associates of the International Islamic Finance Forum.

SEDCO are an Islamic Shariah compliant investment firm based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with offices in US, UK and Yemen. Established in 1976 primarily as a contracting and trading company, SEDCO has evolved to become an investment company with diversified interests in financial, real estate and direct investment. For example, it has a portfolio of 300 properties in 17 countries:

Diamond Sponsor of the Forum is the National Commercial Bank, Saudi Arabia. With active branches in Bahrain and Beirut, five overseas representation offices and more than 600 foreign correspondent banks, the NCB is currently positioned as the largest bank throughout the Arab world.

The NCB is the leading provider of Islamically-compliant products and services and is the largest mutual fund manager in the Kingdom, with a 51% market share and more than SR25 billion invested in 27 funds, including 14 Islamic funds.

The established leader in Islamic banking and liquidity management services, ABCIB Islamic Asset Management of Bahrain and the UK, are Platinum Sponsors.

The ABCIB Islamic Asset Management team concentrates on, real estate, equipment leasing, securitisation, and structured trade finance. It establishes and manages investment products both for itself and ABC Group members, and for third party institutions requiring well managed Shariah-compliant investment products.

The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), which is actively pursuing Islamic finance involvement in the new centre, is also a Platinum Sponsor. Situated as a bridge between the financial centres of Europe and Asia, DIFC is a platform for accessing the trillion dollar regional market. It is a gateway for the flow of capital between the region and international capital markets.

Gold Sponsor is Oasis Global Management of South Africa and Ireland. The company was established to provide clients with the opportunity of investing in international security markets around the globe. The company is responsible for the management of the Oasis Global Investment Scheme:

Silver Sponsor is The FWU-Group. FWU is an entrepreneurial financial services group headquartered in Munich, Germany. Core activities include private label distribution of customised Life Takaful and traditional unit-linked life insurance products and asset management. The FWU-Group primarily deals with financial institutions, such as banks, insurance companies and corporate pension plans.