Earlier this year, City Development issued the 7th and 8th tranches from their programme for a total amount of $ We are encouraged that more sukuk issuances are also in the pipeline. Just recently, Swiber, a major Singapore-listed company engaged in offshore EPIC (Engineering, Procurement, Installation and Construction) services in Asia Pacific, Middle East and Latin America, announced its intentions to set up a sukuk programme in Singapore in the coming months. These developments suggest that the growth potential for Islamic finance in Singapore has yet to be fully realised, and that Singapore can play a role in giving growth of cross-border Islamic financing an even greater push. Towards this end, MAS is presently working with other government agencies and the industry to identify and address time-to market issues to further facilitate Islamic finance activities in Singapore. This includes looking into providing greater clarity and certainty in the regulatory and tax treatment to expedite the issuance of sukuk and other Islamic capital market instruments. 6  “Beyond Borders: The GCC and Asia could Rev up their economies – and the Islamic Finance Market”, Standard & Poor’s Rating Services, Sep 2012. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  The need to raise competency and develop talent to support the growth of the industry cannot be overstated. Singapore Management University (SMU) has successfully completed its first Masters programme in Islamic Law and Finance; and SMU has reiterated its commitment to support efforts at growing the human capital for the Islamic finance industry.
Efforts by the Accounting & Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI), Islamic  2  “The New Silk Road: Asia and the Middle East rediscover trade and investment opportunities”, Research Department, Kuwait China Investment Company (KCIC), January 2011. 3  Ibid. 4  “Economic growth moderates across Middle East”, IMF Survey, May 21, 2013. 5  “World Economic Outlook”, IMF, April 2013. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Development Bank and Malaysia’s International Shariah Research Academy (ISRA) in research and fostering dialogue between Shariah Scholars from various jurisdictions are also narrowing the differences in views on Shariah issues in finance. As work on all these fronts progress, this will encourage greater interest internationally to participate in cross border financing and investment activities. The prospects for cross-border Islamic finance are already very bright. We are beginning to see cross border sukuk issuance within Asia, as well as between Middle East and Asia. As early as 2010, Malaysia’s Khazanah issued a $ sukuk in Singapore, while Japan-based Nomura issued 2-year $ sukuk in Malaysia. Last year, taking advantage of favorable currency swap rates, Singapore listed companies Natural Resources and Golden Agri tapped the Malaysian Ringgit (MR) sukuk market. In the last two years, two GCC firms, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company and Kuwait-based Gulf Investment Corp issued MR sukuk in Malaysia. There is considerable scope to issue more such cross-border sukuk, especially to finance the large infrastructure needs in both Middle East and Asia.