Ready to be taken to the next level, the burgeoning sector of Islamic finance is ready to take root in new regions through Turkey, Malaysia and Qatar. According to Yousuf Al-Jaida, CEO of the Qatar Financial Centre, Malaysia could act as a gateway for Islamic finance into Asia, with Turkey into Europe and Qatar the Middle East and Africa. He stressed that Malaysia was ready with its legal framework to facilitate the sector, while Qatar and Turkey need to step up and do more for the sector. Al-Jaida said these three countries could form a large platform to share experience, technology and knowledge. He is optimistic and sees a bright future, as Islamic finance is now growing at an even quicker pace than conventional finance.
The conventional private equity (PE) industry's taking advantage of excessive cheap debt before the global financial crisis in 2008 has a negative effect when the markets collapsed. In contrast, Islamic PE was able to avoid this situation by relying on restrictions on taking conventional forms of leverage. According to Qatar Finance Centre Authority's director, Yousuf Al-Jaida, there is a strong correlation between Islamic PE and the real economy. The huge difference between the both tyes of PE is that Islamic PE is based on Shariah principles which excludes businesses such as breweries, casinos, riba-based banks and pig farms.