Southeast Asia’s regulators help boost the Islamic funds industry (By IFN)

GLOBAL: Southeast Asia’s regulators are making moves that are set to play a hand in boosting activity of the region’s Islamic funds.

In Indonesia, the government announced plans to reinvest underutilized Hajj funds from the finance ministry into issuances of project-based Sukuk in a bid to raise infrastructure development financing.

The government, which regularly auctions project-based Sukuk and Shariah compliant treasury bills, sees the investment of the pilgrim funds into Sukuk as a more efficient way for the funds to generate revenue, said Anggito Abimanyu, the director general of Hajj pilgrimage management at the ministry of religious affairs, in a report.

Islamic funds are also set to take center stage in Malaysia, following the government-led implementation of voluntary private retirement schemes (PRS). The private pension funds are seen as a supplementary option to the mandatory Employees Provident Fund (EPF) retirement scheme; and are expected to boost growth momentum for Shariah compliant funds.

Zakie Ahmad Shariff, a board member of the PRS’ governing body, the Private Pension Administrator, is quoted as saying that six Islamic funds will be included in the launch of the first 30 PRS products.

In a bid to entice the public into the new scheme, the Malaysian government is offering benefits such as personal tax relief, tax deductions for employers on their contributions to the scheme and tax exemption on income received by PRS fund management firms.

All eight of the approved PRS fund management firms, which include AmInvestment, CIMB-Principal and Public Mutual, already have existing Shariah compliant funds, while it was also reported that AmInvestment and another approved PRS manager, Hwang Investment Management, will introduce Islamic PRSs following the launch of their conventional schemes.

See: http://redmoney.newsweaver.co.uk/1ixbxrwr4q8h38rwoni3wx?email=true&a=6&p=26082964&t=21707164