Mohd Razif bin Abd Kadir: Brief overview of Islamic banking and finance Speech by Mr Mohd Razif bin Abd Kadir, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the Official Launch of Kuala Lumpur International Islamic Finance Expo 2006, Kuala Lumpur, 24 November 2006. *  *  *  It is indeed an honour to be here this morning at the launching of the Kuala Lumpur International Islamic Finance Expo 2006, organized by the Association of Islamic Banking Institutions Malaysia (AIBIM). It was exactly five years ago that all of us witnessed the launching of the first Islamic Banking and Takaful Week by the then Deputy Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. And now, after those years, Alhamdulillah, we are pleased with the positive impact of the comprehensive awareness campaign in the year 2001 as it has paved the way to subsequent nationwide annual campaigns on financial awareness in Islamic banking and finance. In this regard, I wish to congratulate all financial institutions involved for providing their unwavering support in this virtuous endeavour. Before I proceed, allow me to take this opportunity to welcome our exhibitors, both local and foreign, who will be participating in the Kuala Lumpur International Islamic Finance Expo 2006. We believe that your participation will benefit the patrons to this expo.
I hope you will exploit this platform to disseminate as much information on Islamic banking and finance as possible so as to provide an opportunity for the public to learn more on the products, services and benefits of Islamic banking and finance. This year's Islamic financial expo presents a different appeal altogether with various differentiated activities and events organised for the diversified target groups and consumers. I note that various activities have been arranged for the next five days including Islamic banking and finance exposition, the annual Islamic Finance Forum, colloquium on Islamic finance, convention on takaful and Islamic unit trust advisors and Muzakarah for Shariah advisors. This is indeed an excellent opportunity for exchanging ideas as well as providing relevant information to the public on Islamic finance. It is also timely and augurs well with the recent announcement of the initiatives to position Malaysia as the international Islamic financial centre. The Islamic financial industry in Malaysia has experienced rapid transformations particularly in the past ten years. The Malaysian Islamic banking system registered strong performance with higher profitability and positive trends in all key indicators. Profitability surpassed the RM1 billion mark for the first time in 2005, and this year the industry will again register good profit as for the first half of 2006, the amount of profit generated was already RM800 million. The total assets of Islamic banking currently stands at RM122 billion. The performance of the Malaysian Islamic financial market in particular the capital market has been encouraging.