Qatar is planning to be a hub for Islamic sukuk in the world. The Qatar Stock Exchange is expected to introduce more Islamic products for the investors, a senior official has said.
“Government is facilitating with all the initiatives as we see a lot of Islamic banking and products and we see universities teaching Islamic products and affairs. We are planning to be hub for Islamic sukuk and we want to work with that and even we propose to buy sukuk exchange and make Qatar as a hub for sukuk and bonds and the government is facilitating all initiatives in this regard to make Qatar as a hub,” Rashid bin Ali Al Mansoori, Board Member and Former CEO, Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) said during a webinar.
Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s College of Islamic Studies organised a webinar on ‘Islamic Finance Prospects for Stock Exchanges’ which discussed the Islamic prospect and global development in the stock exchange.
Rashid bin Ali Al Mansoori shared his experience in the QSE, talked about establishment of QSE and its role in the economy, and Islamic products in the stock exchange.
Elaborating about the prospect for Islamic Finance for Qatar and QSE, he mentioned the Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and the underlying asset – QETF by Doha Bank and the other by Al Rayan Bank. “We have a lot of things that we like to introduce to the market. We are working to introduce more Islamic products for the investors,” Al Mansoori said.
Giving an update on the gold based stocks, he said, “We are working and are in the final stages to list the ETFs. We have two ETFs listed and the gold will be ready soon and it is very good product.”
Speaking about plans to establish ESG index or any sustainability index in Qatar Stock Exchange, Al Mansoori noted that “it is in progress and we are working on it with MSCI to establish it and it shall be out soon and also we had a conference in Qatar last year. The index should be out soon.”
Responding to a query on initiatives taken to include Qatari citizens, expatriates and residents to be included in QSE, the official said “Around 2015, we started the Financial Literacy, and many people came to this sessions and HBKU university was key player in this literacy and we still have online education program.
So, we wanted to create smarter and educated investors who know how to invest, we achieved this last five years and we are continuing as we are part of the World Federation of Exchange where there is a program for financial literacy and even now in QSE is doing the work on this. We are moving forward to include everybody whether they are Qataris or expatriates.”
He also spoke about the initiatives regarding the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and how to approach the SMEs for stock market. “We started this very early (from 2015) to start new market for SMEs – the Qatar Venture market which has two companies now and we had a number of small and medium sized companies interested in this. We worked with Qatar Development Bank (QDB) on fund support.”
“We have a fund of about $100,000 or QR400,000 to support SMEs in Qatar markets provided by QDB and we created a new market called Qatar Venture Market and we listed there two companies – Al Faleh Educational Holding Company, and second is Mekdam Holding, a technology company which is very successful.”— The Peninsula
