ISLAMIC FINANCIAL SYSTEM HAS OPPORTUNITY TO GROW

SEPANG (Malaysia), June 19 (Bernama) -- The Islamic financial system has
opportunity to grow and expand while the global community is faced with
challenges from the upheavals in the conventional financial system.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Jamil Khir Baharom said to
meet that target three aspects had to be given attention.

First developing an Islamic financial industry that was truly sound, strong
and established to face any crisis and challenge.

"Second to encourage growth of the Islamic financial landscape based on
instruments that can compete, were creative and innovative, and thirdly solidify
monitoring and legal aspects to face the global financial environment that is
getting more challenging," he said.

He said the Islamic financial industry had begun to get a place and
attention from the non-Islamic community when countries whose majorities were
not Muslim like Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, France and Japan
showed interest in promoting Islamic finance.

"These developed countries were active in recruting expertise in Islamic
finance to become global financial hubs," he said.


Jamil said based on current data issued by Universiti Islam Antarabangsa
Malaysia the Islam global financial industry needed up to two million skilled
workers in the field compared to 92,000 in 2007.

He said this showed each year there was demand for 135,000 workers on
average to support the industry.

"In this era of slowdown, we see many losing jobs in various sectors but the
opposite scenario is happening in Islamic finance," he said.

He also said the time had come for Muslims to give serious consideration to
the use of the gold dinar that is having currency backed by gold.

Jamil said the collpase of a conventional financial system based on fiat
money or currency not backed by assets represented the source of credit collapse
that had an impact on the global economic slump.

He said study on the gold dinar as replacement to fiat money had to be done
urgently.

-- BERNAMA