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Dubai sukuk listings soars to $70.8 billion

Dubai - The capital raised through the sukuk will be used to fund medical, social and business projects in many of the bank's 57 member countries.

Nasdaq Dubai welcomed on Sunday the listing of a $1.5 billion sukuk issued by Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) to support Covid-19 relief initiatives.
With the latest listing, the value of Dubai's sukuk listings now total $70.79 billion, reinforcing the emirate's status as one of the largest sukuk listing centres in the world by value.
UAE issuers account for 44 per cent of these by value with 56 per cent from issuers in other countries. The second sukuk listed by multilateral lender in three months on Nasdaq underlines the growth of Dubai as the global capital of the Islamic economy as reflected by the number of sukuks being listed on Nasdaq.
Last week the exchange welcomed the listing of a $500 million Sukuk by Sharjah Islamic Bank which was subsequent to the listing of $200 million sukuk issued by GFH Financial Group early in June.
The latest sukuk has been issued under IsDB's Sustainable Finance Framework. It brings the number of IsDB sukuk listed on the region's international exchange to 12 with a total value of $16.14 billion.
The first of IsDB's 12 current sukuk listings on the exchange was a $1 billion instrument that listed in 2015. The other IsDB listings include three sukuk of $1.5 billion each, a $1.3 billion sukuk, four sukuk of $1.25 billion each, a 650 million euro sukuk and a 1.1 billion euro sukuk.
Dr Bandar Hajjar, President of IsDB, said the debut Sustainability sukuk issuance would play a vital role in social projects that improve healthcare facilities, equipment and critical staffing in member countries to mitigate the effects of Covid-19, as well as support small and medium-sized businesses and promote employment as countries recover from the effects of the disease.
"The competitive profit rate of 0.908 per cent that we achieved reflects strong market confidence in our issuance and we look forward to further expanding our sustainable financing activities, including developing our cooperation with Nasdaq Dubai as the region's international financial exchange," said Hajjar.
Essa Kazim, governor of Dubai International Financial Centre, secretary general of Dubai Islamic Economy Development Centre, and chairman of Dubai Financial Market, said IsDB's latest listing demonstrates the effectiveness of global collaboration in the Islamic capital markets to protect and improve the welfare of individuals and stimulate economic development.
"This listing underlines the wide diversity of issuers on Nasdaq Dubai, which so far this year has hosted new sukuk issuances from a variety of sovereign, multilateral and private sector entities from around the world," said Abdul Wahed Al Fahim, chairman of Nasdaq Dubai.
Hamed Ali, chief executive officer of Nasdaq Dubai, said the exchange is preparing further initiatives to support the ESG sector and look forward to welcoming many more such issuances from a range of public and private sector institutions. - issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com