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Shibeer Ahmed
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21 July 2008
Islamic finance has firmly shaken off the tag of being a niche and specialised area attractive only to a small, and predominantly Muslim, business community. It is now a booming and increasingly necessary sector of the finance industry, not just in the Middle East but across Asia and with a growing interest in mainland Europe too.
The global demand for Sharia compliant financing is almost growing quicker than the financial institutions can service the need. Whilst there are no firm statistics about the size of Islamic finance globally, some commentators estimate that the Islamic banking and finance market has grown between 10% and 15% annually over the past decade and that it is currently worth in excess of $500 billion. The UK-based Islamic Finance Information Service says that $16.9 billion in Sukuk were issued in the first 10 months of 2006 – 43 percent more than all Sukuk issued in 2005. Current indicators are that this level of activity will only increase as more and more financial institutions arrive in the region.
Lovells has built up its expertise in Islamic finance over many years and with the award winning team led by Rahail Ali now has a market leading practice able to advise on cutting edge Islamic finance. Rahail and his team are based in Lovells' new Dubai office which opened on 1 May 2007. Team members have advised on numerous high profile and award winning deals closing more than 80 Islamic finance transactions with an aggregate deal value in excess of US$15billion over the last 12 months.
For more information on Lovells' Islamic finance expertise please contact Rahail Ali at rahail.ali@lovells.com / +971 4304 5555.